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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24358774">Paper Hearts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Horolojium/pseuds/Horolojium'>Horolojium</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dogs, Explicit Consent, Fluff and Angst, Love Letters, M/M, Spock has long hair, polyglot Jim</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 06:27:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>24,532</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24358774</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Horolojium/pseuds/Horolojium</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim is a grad student with a dog and a Bones and not much else. Spock is a genius nearly consumed by grief and loneliness. When fate brings them together via a four legged messenger, neither of them could have predicted just how close they would become. But when a shadow from the past threatens everything, Spock and Jim learn just how much they can endure.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James T. Kirk/Spock</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>130</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jim Kirk has a dog problem. More accurately, a lack of a dog problem. And even more accurately than that, a lack of <em>his</em> dog problem. </p>
<p>See, when Jim got out of the Navy a year and a half ago, he’d been fine for about two weeks before drinking himself stupid and crying on Bones’ couch that he didn’t know jack shit about how to be a civilian. Bones, who didn’t know jack shit about being a civilian either, gave him another beer and told him to get a dog. Or a job. Jim was very drunk. </p>
<p>Bones will swear until he’s blue in the face that he very much did not tell Jim ‘I can do quantum mechanics in my head but can’t do the damn dishes’ Kirk to get a dog. </p>
<p>But even if Bones didn’t tell him to get a dog, Jim got up the next morning, went to the shelter, saw a pair of sad blue eyes, and walked back to temporary base housing with sixty pounds of shiny gold mutt. Bones had whined and groaned and bitched at Jim, but two hours later Thor had stolen his heart along with Jim’s. And Bones’ grilled chicken. </p>
<p>But now, in San Francisco, after a long day of grad student-ing at Enterprise University, all Jim wants to do is take his dog for a walk, crack open a beer, and fall asleep to NCIS reruns. But the fact that his dog is not around to be taken for a walk really throws a wrench in Jim’s exciting plans for the evening. </p>
<p>He doesn’t even have to look in his and Bones’ shoebox apartment to know that his dog isn’t there. The door hanging open tells him everything he needs to know, because it was shut when he left for class this morning and Bones has never left a door open in the spirit of being neighborly in his life. The sad thing is that Jim isn’t even mad at Thor for escaping, but for doing so after he’d dropped a decent amount of money installing a dog proof lock and door handle. </p>
<p>So Jim drops off his backpack, mourns his evening plans, and changes into his running gear to go hunt down his dog. If he’s going to be running all over the neighborhood, he might as well do some actual running while he’s at it. </p>
<p>Jim doesn’t get very far before the elderly Mrs. Alvarez from Next Door accosts him, showering him in a flurry of  Spanish and a cloud of dusty floral perfume. </p>
<p>After assuring her that yes, he's eating enough, no, Bones hasn't seen the latest episode of the Bachlorette yet but he will soon, and of course Jim will visit this Saturday, he asks Mrs. Alvarez hopefully if she's seen Thor. </p>
<p>She shakes her head. “Lo siento, no la vi.” Jim gives her a smile anyway, and bends down into her hug before bounding down to the street. </p>
<p>He circles the block for a fruitless twenty minutes, and nearly does it again when a perky co-ed stops him, gives him a gratuitous once over, and tells him that her friend texted her a picture of a  dog matching Jim’s description at Rose Park about an hour ago. </p>
<p>Jim thanks her and settles into what he thinks will be a thirty- minute run. It takes him sixty. He failed to take into consideration the fact that San Francisco was built specifically to deter people from running in it, what with the stupid hills and traffic and cyclists everywhere, and the fact that since leaving the Navy he’s avoided running like the plague. </p>
<p>It’s a small miracle that he manages to drag himself into the Helm to beg some water off of Chekhov, the Russian whiz kid who manages to be both the best barista in San Francisco and the most irritatingly brilliant person in Jim’s physics grad classes. </p>
<p>“Chekov,” gasps Jim as he pushes open the door, the gentle tinkling of the bell pounding in his head. “I think I’m dying. I need water before I sweat to death and if that happens Bones will resurrect me just to kill me again for thinking I could run a ten k on Ramen noodles and espresso.”</p>
<p>“Water, or Russian Water?” asks Chekov idly. </p>
<p>Jim staggers to the counter. “This is a coffee shop, you don’t have any ‘Russian Water’. Not that you’re even old enough to know what vodka tastes like.” Never mind that Jim could mix a mean cocktail by the time he was thirteen. </p>
<p>Chekov huffs at him. “Fine. Baby water it is. And where is the little princess today, I have new treats for her.” </p>
<p>Jim has been coming to the weird little coffee shop for about nine months-which is eight months after he and the owner, Sulu, met in a bar and swapped stories about all the crazy shit they got up to in the Navy and Air Force respectively. They formed an instant bro connection, which solidified into a life long bro connection when Sulu introduced Jim’s hangover to Sulu’s special coffee roast. </p>
<p>Chekov and Thor formed a similar connection, one that the teenager insists comes from the fact that they’re both ‘inwented in Russia’. Jim doesn’t have the heart to tell him Thor was likely ‘inwented’ in an American puppy mill, and lets Chekov shower his dog with upscale canine confectioneries. </p>
<p>“You know what, maybe I just left her at home for once and came to my favorite coffee shop all by myself,” says Jim, leaning up against the beaten up coffee bar. </p>
<p>Chekov hands Jim his water, utterly unimpressed. Jim chugs the water and regrets it immediately when the ice burn hits his chest. Coughing, Jim relents. “Fine, you win. She ran off again, and someone saw her come this way earlier. Have any customers said anything?”</p>
<p>Just then, a voice behind him says, “She wouldn’t happen to be big, blonde, and fond of chewing shoes, would she?” The voice sounds like it already knows the answer, and just wants to confirm if Jim knows exactly how much shit he’s in for. </p>
<p>Feeling like he’s just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Jim winces and turns around slowly to face his fate. His fate turns out to be a very beautiful, very pissed off woman in a bright red dress and missing one expensive looking sandal. </p>
<p>“Maybe?” </p>
<p>The woman marches up to him, graceful despite her partial shoelessness. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to find my shoe, and your dog, in that order. You are going to make my shoe look brand new, and leave it here with Chekov. When my Advanced Syntax class is finished, my shoe will be here.”</p>
<p>Jim only barely suppresses the desire to salute. Then, because he has a bad case of foot in mouth disease, he says, “Yes ma’am. Only, I can’t do all of that if I don’t know where my dog and your shoe are.”</p>
<p>She glares at him. “She ran off towards the rose and rock garden.”</p>
<p>With that, Jim’s out the door. He dodges a family with two strollers and a very old dachshund, and cuts across one of the large grassy areas to the rock and rose garden. It’s the smaller, less flashy of the rose gardens the park is famous for. The June heat means that the heady, almost pungent rose smell greets Jim before the flowers themselves. </p>
<p>He slows down once he’s in the garden, checking every little alcove and gazebo. It takes nearly the entire length of the garden, but Jim finally finds a match for the woman’s shoe dropped near the entrance to an alcove framed by a trellis heavy with pink flowers. </p>
<p>“Fucking finally,” he mutters to himself as he ducks under the roses. A young mother shoots him a dirty look at Jim’s language, but Jim will make the time to feel bad about it after he has his dog back. </p>
<p>“Thor, you don’t even know how much trouble you’re in. If you were a human, this is where I would ground you until you’re a teenager and-“</p>
<p>Jim has had his breath taken away many times before. Mostly as an after effect of someone else’s bad decision, and mostly with a good helping of bruises and scrapes and black eyes on the side. </p>
<p>This time, it feels like jumping out of a plane without a parachute. </p>
<p>The stranger Thor is currently using as a headrest is every fantasy Jim has ever had in his life all rolled into one. Beautiful or gorgeous can’t do him justice. No, Jim decides with the part of his brain that remembers how to make words, this man is striking, with big brown eyes and sharp cheekbones and intense eyebrows that shouldn’t work but somehow do. His hair, shiny black and pulled up into a sleek bun, just adds to the whole picture. </p>
<p>“Are you James T. Kirk?</p>
<p>And Jim has never fallen in love with a voice before, but this one reminds him that there's a first time for everything. </p>
<p>Then his brain catches up with his mouth. Jim opens his mouth and prepares to sweep the stranger from his dreams off his feet with a witty, flirty quip. Alas, his brain and his mouth were not as well connected as he thought, and instead Jim says, very intelligently, “Ack.”</p>
<p>Once he’s trying to sink into the ground and disappear forever, Jim redeems himself and says, “I mean, yes. That’s me. But how the hell did you know that?”</p>
<p>The man arches an eyebrow, and reaches down to Thor’s collar, where he turns over her dog tags, on which Jim’s name and phone number are engraved. </p>
<p>I can do quantum mechanics in my head, Jim thinks miserably. But not for long, because after he’s embarrassed himself enough to thoroughly obliterate any chance of the hot stranger being anything more than a hot stranger, he can pull himself together. </p>
<p>“A logical conclusion,” Jim says. Something in the stranger’s eyes flicker at that. Jim files that information away for later and continues. “I’m sorry that my dog is bothering you like this, and probably getting fur all over your clothes. I’d like to tell you that she’s usually better behaved, but she takes after her owner and gets into trouble when she’s bored.”</p>
<p>The man inclines his head gracefully. “I accept your apology, yet it is quite unnecessary. Thor did not ‘bother’ me. She was pleasant company for the duration of my chess match.”</p>
<p>Jim wants to keep talking to him, but a chirp from his watch tells him it’s time to get going. Jim holds out his hand and says, “Thank you for introducing Thor to chess, it was nice meeting you-“ He ends in a quizzical note, realizing that in all his ogling he hasn’t actually gotten the guy’s name. </p>
<p>The stranger doesn’t take Jim’s hand, and Jim discretely brings it down to pet Thor’s ears. But he does answer Jim’s unasked question. </p>
<p>“I am Dr. Grayson,” he says quietly. “But you may call me Spock.”</p>
<p>Jim tests it out. “Spock.” He nods. “It suits you.”</p>
<p>Another chirp from his watch tells him that he’s about to be late, and so Jim regretfully clips Thor’s harness onto her and leaves the rose alcove with a rushed goodbye. As he runs down the gravel walkway back to the Helm, the picture of Spock alone at the stone chess table gives Jim another impression-one of loneliness. </p>
<p>-<br/>
Spock watches Jim and Thor race through the rose and rock garden. When they are out of sight, he looks down at the chessboard, and moves a piece that is not there. </p>
<p>“It is your move, Mother.”</p>
<p>-<br/>
Four thousand miles away, a prison door opens.<br/>
A chess piece moves.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>By the time Jim and Thor finally make it home, the city night has fallen, along with a drizzling rain. Cold, wet, and hungry, Jim unlocks his front door and drags himself in. The smell of a very specific chili hits him in the face, warming him up from the outside in. Thor, somehow still full of energy, bounds to the kitchen ahead of Jim. </p>
<p>Jim changes into dry clothes and grabs a towel, running it over his own hair before catching Thor and giving her a thorough drying. Before he can finish the job, Thor wiggles out from under the towel and shoots off down the hallway. </p>
<p>He waits for a moment, then grabs two cold beers. Three, two,-</p>
<p>“Aaargh, get off me you overgrown hell beast, no, stop licking me damn it!” Jim heads down the hall to rescue Bones, the doctor’s dulcet tones ringing in his ears.<br/>
Bones is sprawled out the floor of his bedroom, trying and failing to stop a long pink tongue and the stinky wet dog it’s attached to from removing his eyebrows via saliva. Jim let Bones suffer for a little bit, then calls off Thor with the promise of food. </p>
<p>“Speaking of food, is that your mom’s chili in the kitchen?” asks Jim as he gives Bones a hand up off the floor. Bones takes it, and when he’s upright, swipes a beer from Jim’s hand. He takes a swallow, wipes his mouth, and says, “I still don’t know how you can smell if it’s my mother’s chili or not. It’s unnatural.”</p>
<p>“You’re just mad that she likes me better than you.” </p>
<p>Bones rolls his eyes and trudges towards the kitchen. Jim trails behind, but not by much. He feeds Thor, and watches in mild disgust as she inhales her food. But then again, Bones likes to remind him that Jim’s table manners aren’t that much better. </p>
<p>Soon Jim finds himself a heaping bowl of chili and a slice of Bones’ famous homemade cornbread. Which, look. Dr. Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy is one peach allergy away from being a walking, talking, magnolia scented stereotype. And Jim will never, ever bring this up to him if he wants continued access to the culinary fruits of Bones’ short-lived domestic bliss. </p>
<p>After Jim has cleaned every bit of chili and cornbread out of his bowl, he starts cleaning up the kitchen while Bones starts his daily bitch-fest. </p>
<p>“Jim, I wouldn’t trust some of these kids to do surgery on a pet rock, let alone any actual human beings. And do you know what I overheard that son of a fuck David Dunne the goddamned Third tell a patient on one of his rounds?” His eyes look a little wild above their perpetual black and purple bags. </p>
<p>Jim snickers to himself. “What?”</p>
<p>Bones takes a gulp of beer. “He told a little girl who just got out of emergency gallbladder surgery that she should, and I quote ‘Suck it up’ when she asked him to do something about a pain that turned out to be a severe allergic reaction.”</p>
<p>Jim can practically feel Bones’ rage, and he’s inclined to agree. “So did you castrate him, tar and feather him, make him eat collard greens?”</p>
<p>“I dragged him to meet that little girl’s parents and told him to repeat what he said to their daughter to them.” He grins, a bit like a jack-o-lantern. “Tomorrow I think I’ll have one less intern.”</p>
<p>They both drink to that. Jim knows the other side of the story without Bones having to tell him, which was that the kindly Southern doctor sat by that little girl’s bedside as long as he could,  personally triple checked every medication she was given for the duration of his shift, and generally cared for her like she was the only patient he had, with a compassion that wasn’t anything special to Bones, because that was just how he was. </p>
<p>Jim knew, because he’d been on the receiving end of that heavy handed compassion more times than he could count on the years he’d known Bones. </p>
<p>Then Jim relays his woes of the day, and isn’t at all surprised when Bones cackles at Jim’s misstep with the beautiful scary lady and is completely on her side. He raises an eyebrow at Jim’s interaction with Dr. Grayson. “Why didn’t you ask him to grab a coffee if he seemed lonely?”</p>
<p>Which was…a good question. “Huh.” Jim takes a moment to consider and shrugs. “It just wasn’t the right time.”</p>
<p>Bones sighs. “Jim, the last ‘right time’ was your high school sweetheart who dumped you right before you went to RTC. And no, one night stands don’t count.”</p>
<p>“You’re one to talk,” snaps Jim, folding his arms. “You haven’t gotten laid since med school.”</p>
<p>It’s blatantly untrue, but Jim’s not mean enough (yet) to bring up Bones’ divorce. </p>
<p>Bones starts the dishwasher and scratches Thor’s ears before leaving the kitchen. He lingers in the doorway for a minute, and says gently but pointedly, “You’re missing something, I can see it. All I want is for you to find that something.”</p>
<p>Jim doesn’t answer, and ignores the sharp little voice that tells him that Bones is right. </p>
<p>And if thoughts of inky black hair and a plush pink mouth cross his mind before he falls asleep on the couch, that’s nobody’s business but his own.<br/>
--<br/>
Somewhere else in San Francisco, Spock plays the last note of Faure’s Elegie. </p>
<p>It lingers, echoing through the empty rooms of his empty home. When it disappears at last, Spock performs the necessary daily maintenance on his cello. It would never occur to him not to do it, the actions are simply what comes after the end of his daily practice. </p>
<p>He sits at a wooden desk near a dust covered baby grand piano, and resumes work on his research. A single lamp provides the only light in the house. The sound of his pen seems as loud as his cello in the silence. As he works, Spock does not check his phone, because he knows there is only one message and it is Nyota’s daily attempt to get him to be social. </p>
<p>He works until the silence becomes too much to bear.</p>
<p> When he retires to bed, Spock opens the window near his bed and lets the gentle sigh of rain lull him to sleep, where he dreams of reaching into the dark and grasping at nothing.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thursdays and Jim don’t get along. Ninety nine percent of the shitty things that have ever happened to Jim that he didn’t actively bring upon himself occurred on Thursdays. The other one percent, well. The ‘T’ in James T Kirk doesn’t stand for trouble, but it probably should. </p><p>So when this particular Thursday interrupts what should have been a pleasant July morning, Jim probably should have seen it coming. </p><p>He’s in a quantum mechanics lecture, elbows deep in an argument about harmonic oscillators, when his phone vibrates. Dr. McNamara glares in Jim’s general direction, and Jim cringes apologetically before scuttling out of the lab and answering his phone. He doesn’t recognize the number, and he’s going to be really pissed if a telemarketer prevents him from finally out sciencing Chekov. </p><p>“Hello?”  </p><p>“Mr. Kirk, did you break into my home?”</p><p>And damn, Jim’s never wanted to be accused of a crime more than when Spock does it. But then his brain catches up with his dick and now he’s offended, on principle. </p><p>“If I broke into your house, you’d never know. Not because I’m a criminal,” he adds quickly. “I just take pride in my work. Which is not crime.” </p><p>After an icy, rage filled silence, Spock says flatly, “Then please explain to me why your dog is asleep in my bathtub.”</p><p>Jim covers the mic on his phone and swears before answering Spock, sort of. “I knew I was due for a Thursday, it’s been too long. I have no idea how or why Thor is in your bathtub, are you sure, like one hundred and ten percent sure it’s my dog?”</p><p>“Mr. Kirk, it is impossible to be one hundred and ten percent sure of anything. But the dog in my bathtub is the same dog I met two weeks ago in Rose Park.”</p><p>Scrubbing a hand over his face, Jim briefly contemplates calling and waking up Bones to go pick up the wayward dog. The thought of Bones’ wrath squashes that idea very quickly. “Alright. I still don’t know how she broke out of my apartment and into yours without opposable thumbs, but I am sorry that my dog has turned to petty crime. If you give me your address, I’ll be over to get her as soon as I can. And please, call me Jim.”</p><p>“Very well, Jim. My address is Seventy Four East Rosewood Avenue.” He doesn’t give Jim a chance to respond before hanging up. </p><p>Luckily, Spock doesn’t live too far from campus. Jim cuts through the heart of Enterprise University, dodging meandering undergrads and taking the opportunity to admire the view of his school. </p><p>It looks a bit like someone tried to make architecture out of a lens flare, but behind the obnoxiously high tech, green energy glass buildings lurks a highly competitive, research focused campus. Enterprise has one of the most prestigious applied physics graduate programs in the country. Jim still doesn’t know how he, with his B.S. in Engineering cobbled together over the course of his ten years in the Navy, and independent research done in what spare time he could scrounge up, got in. </p><p>But he loves it, loves being challenged in ways the Navy never quite could. </p><p>He turns onto a quiet street of proud Victorians. Spock lives in the very last one, and something about it makes Jim think that it’s seen better days. Not that the tiny front lawn is unkempt, and the house certainly isn’t in dire need of repairs. But it’s almost like the house is holding its breath, although Jim couldn’t begin to guess what for. </p><p>After a minute or two anthropomorphizing houses, Jim gets his shit together and heads up the steep stoop. He raises a hand to knock on the door, but Spock opens it before he can. And, wow. Jim had half thought he was just exaggerating about how stunning Spock is, but seeing him in person again proves him wrong. </p><p>“Your punctuality is appreciated,” says Spock as he gestures for Jim to follow him into the house. The inside is mostly pale wood, and Spock’s taste in décor reminds Jim of his brief time in the Sonoran desert, with lots of natural fibers and pottery. </p><p>“Nice place,” Jim says in an attempt to break the ice. </p><p>“I do not know what you mean by ‘nice. Do you mean that my home is pleasant and agreeable, or that it is respectable in a particular set of social contexts?” Spock asks as they climb a winding wooden staircase. </p><p>Now, Jim hates this kind of pedantic bullshit. But Spock sounds like he genuinely doesn’t know, and there’s a sort of resignation to it that gets to Jim’s heart. So instead of whipping into a froth, Jim reconsiders. “The first definition. I think.”</p><p>They reach a narrow hallway, and the sudden darkness of it disorients Jim for a moment. Then he gets used to it and looks around at the ornate tapestries and collections of knick knacks on the walls. A layer of dust covers almost all of them. He follows Spock to the master bathroom, so quickly that he doesn’t even have the chance to look around Spock’s bedroom. And in an unexpectedly large clawfoot bathtub, is Jim’s four legged Houdini. </p><p>Spock moves out of the way, giving Jim access to the tub. “I attempted to remove her. As you can see, I was unsuccessful.” He frowns down at her, and in response Thor just rests her head on the edge of the bathtub and looks up at him with a pair of lethal puppy dog eyes.</p><p>“Bad dog! Out of the tub, now.” Jim crosses his arms and waits expectantly.</p><p>Thor yammers back at him, wags her tail, and doesn’t move an inch. It looks like Jim’s going to have to play hardball. </p><p>“Get out, now, or I’ll put you back in doggy daycare.” Thor yawns, and deigns to step lightly out of the tub and sit next to Jim. </p><p>He ruffles her fur. “Was that so hard?”</p><p>This time, Thor licks Jim’s elbow and howls. Spock looks vaguely disconcerted, and Jim can’t have his dog ruining his love life any more than she already has. </p><p> Jim snaps, “Stop giving me attitude, we agreed- No howling inside.”</p><p>“Are you arguing with your dog?” Spock interrupts warily.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“In Farsi?”</p><p>“Maybe.”</p><p>Spock steps closer, a warm curiosity softening the harsh set of his face. This close, Jim could see the little threads sticking out of Spock’s thick sweater. He wants to reach out and smooth them down, but keeps his hands firmly at his sides. </p><p>Spock switches to Farsi. “Your accent is that of a native speaker.”</p><p>“Thanks, so is yours.” Then Jim asks, because Spock’s a little ethnically ambiguous and Jim’s strategy for asking potentially awkward questions to just go ahead and ask anyway, “Are you Iranian?”</p><p>“No.” </p><p>Well, that’s one mystery solved. But it also opens up a million more, and Jim wants to stay and unravel them all. He reaches out to clap Spock on the shoulder without even thinking about it, and so it startles them both when Spock fully flinches away from his hand. </p><p>Jim, thinking he might have somehow hurt Spock, apologizes quickly. But Spock doesn’t look hurt, just suddenly old and tired and sad. He ignores Jim’s apology, and Jim gets the hint to move on loud and clear. </p><p>He clips Thor’s harness and leash to her, and follows Spock down the dark, dusty hallway and stairs back to the front door. “Once again, I’m really sorry that she interrupted your day and your house like that. I’m going to get a buddy of mine to install, like, industrial strength bars on my front door.”</p><p>“Your apology is accepted.” Spock hovers near the stairwell, and in the shadows he looks even more like he’s being crushed under something only he can see. </p><p>So Jim takes a chance. “You mentioned that you play chess. Not to brag, but I’ve been told I’m pretty damn good, and I’d like to see if you’re as good as the internet says you are.”</p><p>And even if Jim wasn’t halfway infatuated with him, Jim would still offer, because he knows what it’s like to have that kind of weight following you around, and it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t know the nature of Spock’s particular burden. </p><p>Spock looks surprised, and a little confused. But he accepts. “I am available Saturday between eleven am and three pm.”</p><p>Jim grins, his stomach swooping a little. “See you then.”</p><p>-<br/>
When Saturday comes, Mrs. Alvarez sends Jim out of her apartment earlier than usual, telling him that they can’t possibly talk about the Bachelorette if Jim can’t even sit still. But she’s laughing as she says it, and Jim’s tiny pseudo-grandmother presses a bag of pastries into his hands and a kiss to his cheek before pushing him out into the hallway. </p><p>Jim thanks her and promises he’ll make it up to her next week. He leaves Thor at home, and bikes to the park instead, taking in the warm, sunny morning. He gets there at ten fifty five on the dot, and as he’s chaining his bike up, he spots a familiar figure in black sitting on a park bench, feeding seeds to birds and squirrels. </p><p>Spock surrounded by tiny, adoring birds and fat squirrels is just about the sweetest thing Jim has ever seen, and so he fiddles with his bike lock and looks at Spock through the spokes for a stupidly long time.</p><p>Then a sparrow flutters up and starts poking at Spock’s sleekly upswept hair, and Jim just can’t contain himself as Spock slowly reaches up and dislodges the curious bird, setting it back down on the ground with its hungry friends. </p><p>“Spock!” Jim calls, jogging over to the park bench. The birds and squirrels suddenly have somewhere better to be, although a few stick around to keep eating. </p><p>Spock looks up and nods a greeting. He stands, brushing off bits of seeds left over from the birds. </p><p>“Ready to be amazed at my badass chess skills?” Jim teases. It gets him an eyebrow raise, which Jim counts as a win. </p><p>“I am prepared for any outcome, but the chances of that particular outcome occurring are .0004 to one.”</p><p>Now it’s Jim’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “.0004 to one, huh?” He flashes a grin. “I like those odds.”</p><p>They find a stone chess table in the yellow rose garden, and Spock pulls the pieces from a small velvet bag. They’re unlike any other chess set Jim’s seen. The pieces are roughly carved from a deep teal and white stone. Jim picks up what he thinks is a bishop, and examines the stern bird figure. He doesn’t want to ask Spock to tell him the theme of the set, he wants to figure it out for himself. After a good look at the rest of the pieces, some with cat heads and others with dog heads, he has it.</p><p>“Why Egyptian gods?” </p><p>Spock finishes setting up the pieces. “Why not?” </p><p>“Good point,” Jim says with a laugh. They start to play, Jim moving white and Spock moving black. </p><p>And, predictably, Spock kicks Jim’s ass in twenty minutes. Jim’s never seen anything like the way Spock plays, it’s mechanical to the point of ruthlessness. And now Jim has to deal with a strange mix of embarrassment that he lost so thoroughly and being mildly turned on from watching Spock play like that. </p><p>But Jim hates losing more than almost anything, and so on their next match, Jim changes his strategy. Rather than trying to outplay Spock, which is never going to happen, Jim goes for the old “Confuse the ever loving fuck out of an opponent by playing like you’ve only vaguely heard of chess.”</p><p>It works beautifully. “Checkmate.” </p><p>Spock glares at him. “I am still not amazed.”</p><p>“Damn.” As Jim sets up the pieces again, an idea comes to mind. The first two matches were mostly silent, as both he and Spock were focused solely on winning. But now Jim wants to play for stakes.</p><p>“Alright, Spock. In this match, we play for conversation. For every piece one of us loses, the other gets to ask a question.” Jim half expects Spock to get up and leave, with how private Jim can tell he is. And Spock does look mildly panicked, so Jim adds quickly, “But, if there’s a question you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to.”<br/>
Looking much less anxious, Spock agrees. </p><p>Jim plays even more recklessly than last time, and loses nearly as many pieces as he captures of Spock’s. But it’s worth it in what he learns. </p><p>Spock loses a rook.</p><p>“What do you do for a living?”</p><p>“I am the head of the Computer Science department at Enterprise University.”</p><p>One of Jim’s knights gets captured.</p><p>“How do you know Farsi?”</p><p>“I’ve always had an ear for languages, one of my crewmates taught me while we were on patrol near Alaska.”</p><p>Jim steals a bishop.</p><p>“How do <em>you</em> know Farsi?”</p><p>“My mother was a gifted polyglot."</p><p>Spock takes Jim’s rook. </p><p>“Why did you leave the Navy?”</p><p>“I got tired of taking orders, and I’m not enough of a bureaucrat to climb the ranks and give the orders.”</p><p>Jim takes Spock’s queen.</p><p>“Are you this stoic because you want to be or because you have to be?”</p><p>“That is a question for another time.”</p><p>Spock takes Jim’s queen. </p><p>“Why are you protecting the bag of pastries in your lap?”</p><p>“Nope.”</p><p>Jim wins, but only just. His pulse is pounding in his ears, his hands are twitchy, and one look at Spock tells him that he’s not alone in feeling like the space he’s in is suddenly too small. He jumps up and stretches, and when his back is done making horrifying noises, he checks his watch. Good, he still has time. </p><p>“Spock, how do you feel about Russian baristas and Southern doctors?”<br/>
--</p><p>By the time they make it to the Helm, Jim has informed Spock on the merits of every single coffee drink the place offers. After Spock expresses a preference for tea after enduring ten minutes of coffee talk, Jim then launches into an analysis of the Helm’s tea brews, because he’s an equal opportunity kind of guy. </p><p>Sulu’s manning the counter today, and so Jim refuses to let Spock order his own drink. “Trust me, Sulu’s some kind of tea wizard. He can just look at you and tell what tea you need. Need, not want.”</p><p>Spock looks skeptical. “You are certain this tea wizardry is not based on sales volume?”</p><p>“I am shocked and offended, Mr. Spock,” Sulu says with a dramatic hand against his heart. “If you don’t like the brew I pick, I’ll give you free drinks at the Helm for a month. Within reason.”</p><p>Jim jumps in and whines, “How come I never got free drinks? You know, brothers in arms and all that jazz has to count for something.”</p><p>“If I gave you free drinks I’d be out of business in a week.” Sulu reaches out and whacks Jim’s hand away from the biscotti jar. “And no free snacks either.” </p><p>Spock finally agrees to let Sulu work his tea magic when Jim agrees to do it too. As they’re waiting around for the tea, Jim hears a familiar, “Bad dog! No, damn it, you can’t have coffee.”</p><p>He cranes his head trying to find Bones, peering over the heads of other patrons and up into the Helm’s small loft. A veritable jungle of hanging plants and little shelves of secondhand books for sale obscures his view. </p><p>Sulu hands Jim and Spock their drinks, and waits while they try them. “Well?”</p><p>Spock takes a sip of the steaming tea, eyes widening. He looks up at Sulu. “It appears that I will have to pay for my drinks.”</p><p>Jim says smugly, “I told you he was a tea wizard. Now, let’s go bug Bones.” </p><p>It’s not until they’re halfway up the winding metal staircase that Jim realizes he’s had a hand on Spock’s arm the whole time.  He pulls it back quickly, remembering how Spock had flinched the last time Jim had accidentally touched him. </p><p>“Ah, shit. I’m sorry, I forgot about the personal space thing.” He glances over his shoulder as he apologizes. Spock looks confused as he answers, “I-did not mind?”</p><p>When they get to the loft, Jim discovers that Bones is not alone. This is unusual, because Bones is a hermit at the best of times and downright antisocial the rest of the time. Not always by choice, given his hours as a doctor, but still. He has Thor snoozing under the table, and an unexpected someone at the table with him. </p><p>“Damn, Bones. I didn’t think you owned any clothes other than scrubs and pajamas.” He’s kidding, but not entirely. The good doctor looks good in jeans that actually fit and an ancient Ole Miss t shirt. But he still doesn’t look as good as his companion, who is currently trying to skewer Jim with her perfectly made up eyes.</p><p>“Spock, when I said you needed to get out more, this is not what I meant,” she says in Swahili. </p><p>Jim can’t pass up the opportunity to show off. “And by ‘this’ you mean?”</p><p>Her eyes narrow. “What do you think I mean?” </p><p>Jim’s Mandarin is a little rusty, but he manages to shoot back, “I think you’re insinuating something about my character.”</p><p>Spock interrupts, in a language Jim doesn’t speak. Shoe-Lady’s dagger eyes soften, and she nods. </p><p>“If y’all are quite finished,” Bones drawls. Jim slides into the chair next to him, and Spock sits next to Shoe-Lady. </p><p>There’s a flurry of introductions, where Jim learns that Shoe-Lady is better known as Dr. Nyota Uhura and that she and Spock are colleagues on a language AI research project. </p><p>“Now that we’ve established one half of the table are certified geniuses, I’d like to know how you two,” Jim gestures to Bones and Dr. Nyota-don’t call me Nyota-Uhura, “Ran into each other.”</p><p>“I overheard Leonard arguing with Sulu about the way he roasts his coffee beans, and his accent was…intriguing.” </p><p>Jim snorts. “That’s one way of putting it.” </p><p>Bones thumps him on the back of the head and says, “At least I don’t sound like a corn fed hick. She said that if she could guess where I’m from on the first try, I would have to volunteer my voice for her research project.” He looks at her and smiles, the sight of which is a little scary to Jim because he didn’t know Bones remembered how to do that. </p><p>“I got both the state and the county right,” Uhura says haughtily. “But I knew that would happen. Spock’s accent is the only one I’ve ever gotten wrong.”</p><p>All three look at Spock. He sips his tea. “True, but you were correct on the second attempt.”</p><p>They talk for a while, and eventually Jim gets up to wheedle a free cup of green tea from Sulu. To his surprise, Uhura follows him down the stairs, and corners him next to some orchids. </p><p>“Jim,” she says lowly. “I don’t know much about you. I don’t know if I want to know that much about you. But I need you to know that if you break Spock’s heart, I will crush you into tiny little pieces and use you as fertilizer in my herb garden.”</p><p>Well, that’s an image Jim won’t be forgetting any time soon. “We aren’t together, hell, I think we’re only friends as of today.” He definitely doesn’t tell her that he’d like nothing more than to be with the enigmatic genius upstairs. </p><p>She shakes her head. “You don’t understand. I’ve known him for six years, and he’s never let me touch his arm the way you did on the stairs.” Her eyes are bright with care and worry. “That means something. Don’t let it go.”</p><p>“I won’t,” Jim promises, unsure of exactly what it is he’s promising to do. </p><p>“Good.” She heads back up the stairs, leaving Jim alone with his empty cup and roiling thoughts. </p><p>When he gets his refill, unfortunately not for free, Jim returns expecting to find Bones, Uhura, and Spock still in the same pleasant, polite conversation he left them to.</p><p>Instead, pleasant and polite have left the building in body bags. </p><p>“Look you unfeeling computer, that one life is worth just as much as those five!” </p><p>“Dr. McCoy, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. It is logical to pull the lever.”</p><p>Jim deeply considers vaulting himself out of the nearest window. But Uhura grabs his wrist and hisses, “If I have to endure it, you do too.” </p><p>They move out of the fray. Bones is red in the face and gripping the table with white knuckles, and Spock has the rigid posture and blank face of a statue. Factor in Spock’s black dress shirt and Bones’ white t shirt and it’s a study in contrasts. Jim wishes he had popcorn to throw at them. </p><p>He whispers to Uhura, “Watch this.” Jim clears his throat and says loudly, “Why don’t you just untie the five people?”</p><p>Twin glares whip around and skewer him. “Shut up!”</p><p>Sadly, Bones and Spock don’t get to continue trying to beat each other up with ethics, because Bones gets called in to do an emergency surgery. </p><p>Gathering his things, Bones holds out a hand to Spock. “Until next time.”</p><p>Spock doesn’t take it, but inclines his head gracefully. “Until next time.” Then, with a nearly imperceptible smirk, adds, “And in the meantime, Dr. McCoy, I recommend that you review the basics of rhetoric.”</p><p>Jim wipes a fake tear from his eye. “Uhura, I think we just witnessed the start of a beautiful friendship.”</p><p>-<br/>
Two thousand miles away, a grave gets its first visitor. Usually, graves have plenty of them right away, and then they trickle off into every Sunday, every other Sunday, once a month, once a year. But not this one.</p><p>This grave is not a grave, not really. But calling it what is really is- A hastily dug hole in the ground with some extra bits mixed in- is just a little rude. The grave is not in a graveyard, which doesn’t help the whole visitor issue. </p><p>But this visitor finds it, tucked against the crumbling, skeletal remains of a shed. The rustle of a million stalks of corn in the wind, bright and green under an endless sky, do nothing to make the land with the grave and the shed and the visitor seem any more alive. </p><p>In fact, the abundance of life in the crops highlights how just how little life there is on this one patch of land. It is a vicious sort of barren, the kind that suggests in the choking dust, that life does not find a way here, because the land won’t let it. </p><p>The visitor stands over the grave, listening to the rush of the corn. </p><p>The grave waits, for a prayer, for a spray of flowers, for something. </p><p>After an eternity that might have only been a minute, the visitor wipes their eyes and flings the tears on the grave. They turn, walk past another eight unmarked graves, and leave in a stolen pick up truck. </p><p>The dust lingers in a cloud, thick and beige and solid. Then it falls, slowly but surely, blanketing the wretched land in silence.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Jim, when you asked me to accompany you to a museum, this is not what I expected.” </p><p>Spock looks up at a pale wooden sign, which says in curling script, ‘The Good Vibrations Antique Vibrator Museum’. Perhaps if he keeps looking at it, the sign will read something, anything else. He only indulges the illogical pretense for a moment, before turning to Jim and wordlessly demanding an explanation. </p><p>Jim does not give him one. He simply laughs and tugs Spock into the museum, and Spock does not remember to shrug off his hand until Jim has already removed it.<br/>
A tour guide greets them enthusiastically, and launches into a brief summary of the museum’s purpose. Spock listens politely, then attentively. The tour guide is clearly an expert in her field, and when she concludes her story Spock finds himself a little more acutely aware of his male privilege than he had been twenty minutes earlier. </p><p>Next to him, Jim sighs and says, “I love places like this.”</p><p>Concerned, Spock raises an eyebrow. “You love places full of antiquated sexual devices?”</p><p>“Well,” says Jim with a waggle of his own eyebrows. Spock raises his even higher. </p><p>Jim rolls his eyes and moves to examine one of the earliest vibrators. “No. I love museums, the weirder and more niche the better.”</p><p>“Why?” Spock asks, inspects the vibrator as well, suppressing a shudder at the accompanying advertisement. Jim takes nearly three minutes to respond, and moves on to the next mechanical monstrosity before answering. </p><p>“They’re a reminder, I guess. That people are tougher, more creative, and stranger than we give ourselves credit for.” The light, made dim from the museum’s red walls, catches on the planes of his face, and creates shadows that remind Spock that Jim has spent nearly all of his adult life as a soldier. </p><p>Before Spock can voice his agreement, his phone chirps. He leaves Jim to his examination of a ‘magic vibrating disk’ and exits the museum to answer the call.<br/>
The conversation is extremely concise, and yet Spock reenters the museum with dread forming in the pit of his stomach. Jim looks up from a different exhibit, the smile dropping off his face as Spock gets closer to him. </p><p>Jim reaches out to touch his arm, and this time Spock does dodge his hand. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>Spock considers lying to Jim, but he is as powerless against Jim’s eyes creased in concern as he is against those eyes crinkled in mirth. He starts to explain, but what he has to say simply cannot be said while being observed by an audience of vibrators. </p><p>“Is this a walking conversation?”</p><p>“I do not know what that means, but I believe so.”</p><p>They leave the museum, and Spock sets a brisk pace to destinations unknown in all factors, except that they are not a vibrator museum. He collects his thoughts for several minutes, thankful that Jim simply walks beside him and waits. </p><p>“I will be unable to attend your poker game Thursday evening,” he says eventually. “I am required to attend a gallery opening.”</p><p>Jim stops him, and Spock finds himself moved without being touched, out of the stream of pedestrians. </p><p>“How are you required to attend a gallery opening? Are you secretly super rich, because that sounds like the kind of thing super rich people do.” </p><p>Spock looks at the ground and sighs. “Not as such. I have a personal history with the artist, one that obligates me to attend these events if I am able.”</p><p>A pedestrian pushes Spock closer to Jim, and due to their proximity Spock can hear the hitch in Jim’s breath before he asks, “What kind of history, Spock?”</p><p>“The artist is my ex-wife, T’Pring.”</p><p>He has never seen Jim speechless until this moment. It is unnatural, and Spock endeavors not to cause it again. </p><p>Jim finally says, a shake of his head, “I have so many questions.” </p><p>Spock braces himself for an onslaught, only to be caught off guard when Jim asks just one question. “Do you want to go alone?”</p><p>He has always done so before, and it would not be a hardship to do so again. But something in the way Jim asks, in the subtext that Spock so often struggles to grasp, makes him reconsider. </p><p>“I do not require company,” he says slowly. There is a slight change in Jim’s expression, a flash of hurt quickly smoothed over. So Spock adds, looking up from the ground, “But it would not be unwelcome.”</p><p>Jim smiles, broadly and openly, and for a second Spock thinks that there is nothing he wouldn’t do to keep that smile there. </p><p>“It’s a date,” says Jim softly. </p><p>As they resume walking, something lifts off of Spock’s shoulders. He knows that it will return with the same certainty that he knows the sun will set and the moon will rise, but Spock allows himself to cherish these moments when it is not so heavy. </p><p>--<br/>
In the week leading up to the gallery showing, Jim doesn’t think much about it for two reasons.</p><p>The first is that this week, which started innocently enough with a Sunday, turned into four straight Thursdays. He’s been buried under an avalanche of projects, papers, independent research milestones, and everything else that goes along with trying to survive a graduate degree in physics. By the time the last Thursday, known colloquially as just Thursday, rolls around, Jim can barely string two words together, let alone scrape together the brain cells to worry about his definitely not a date. </p><p>The second is the kind of mushy, romantic nonsense that Jim has always been very careful to pretend was beaten out of him by ten years in the military. The second reason Jim doesn’t keep thinking about the gallery showing is that he saves it, for when his research goes nowhere and he’s got more coffee than blood in his body. Then, when he’s on the brink of quitting, he pulls out the little box labeled ‘Spock’ that he keeps tucked close to his metaphorical heart. Jim lets himself dwell in the warm, safe embrace of imagination and memory, before carefully closing the box and putting it where nowhere could see it. Metaphorically. </p><p>The Navy may not have been able to kill Jim’s hopeless romanticism, but it sure did teach him how to compartmentalize. It’s the kind of thing Bones likes to play armchair psychology with, or he would if Jim let his friend anywhere near his psyche. </p><p>When everything is triple checked and handed in on Thursday afternoon, Jim’s so dead from exhaustion that he seriously considers cancelling to sleep. But then a rattle from that little box reminds him of the dread and sadness in Spock’s eyes when he told Jim about the gallery opening, and Jim can’t imagine a single universe in which he’d let Spock walk into whatever awaited him there alone.  </p><p>So, Jim downs a bucket of coffee and goes to confront his wardrobe problem. See, another thing about being in the Navy for the entirety of his adult life is that when he had a formal function to go to, the only thing Jim had to worry about was if it was a dress whites or a dress blues kind of event. When he became a civilian a year and a half ago, buying suits was not at the top of his list of priorities. Or on the list at all. </p><p>He sits on the edge of his bed and stares into his closet, as if by sheer willpower his one or two nicer jackets might pull a Cinderella and transform into a suit. Bones might have a suit, but he’s got broader shoulders and longer legs than Jim, and the only thing worse than no suit is an ill fitting suit. Or so he’s been told. </p><p>Thor runs in from the hall, skidding on the slippery floor. She makes a beeline for Jim and drops something on his foot before sitting and wagging her tail. Her pale blue eyes bore into Jim as he looks down to see what she brought in. </p><p>“Damn it Thor, I actually liked that shoe.” Jim pokes the sneaker, then gets an idea. </p><p>He grabs his phone, wincing when he sees the time, and calls Nyota. </p><p>“Hey- No, I didn’t know you were in the middle of a breakthrough in your research, how would I-“</p><p>She interrupts him. “Jim, get to the point.”</p><p>“Okay, remember how you owe me a favor from when-“</p><p>“We don’t need to talk about it,” Nyota says hastily. “Fine, what do you need?”</p><p>Jim sighs. “I’m going to this fancy thing with Spock and because my life is a fucking rom com, I don’t have anything to wear. If I show up in jeans and a t shirt he might actually kill me.”</p><p>“You’re twenty eight, how do you not own a suit? Surely you’ve been to at least one wedding or funeral by now.” She sounds incredulous.</p><p>“I’ve been to plenty of both,” Jim says delicately. “But I was either in white, blue, or a rental.”</p><p>“Fine, I’ll be there in twenty. And you owe me. Again.”</p><p>And because Nyota is just that good, she gets there in fifteen minutes, holding a large garment bag and a giant Starbucks cup. Something about her shirt looks familiar, but Jim brushes it aside.</p><p> “Here,” she says, shoving the garment bag at Jim. “My brother left it here the last time he visited, you two have a similar build.”</p><p>“You’re the best,” Jim says sincerely. But of course, when he unzips the garment bag back in his bedroom, it just couldn’t be that easy.</p><p>Nyota’s brother didn’t go for a normal black or blue or even pinstriped suit. Instead, Jim pulls out a suit of deep and darker blues, lit by a subtle weaving of gold thread throughout the abstract texture. The waistcoat is the same deep, rich gold. It’s way flashier than anything Jim would have picked out for himself, but then he remembers that he’s going to an art thing, so whatever. </p><p>Then he sees the time, and Jim doesn’t have enough of it to stand around feeling like he’s about to go to prom. He throws on a white shirt, pulls the suit on, and to his surprise- It fits well. The cut makes it seem like he’s a lot more diligent about working out than he actually is, and Jim already knows he looks good in blue and gold. </p><p>He heads to the kitchen to get a second opinion and finds Nyota flicking idly through one of his physics journals. </p><p>“You didn’t mention that your brother has a flair for the dramatic.” </p><p>“Whoops,” she deadpans. “Stand up.”</p><p>She abandons the journal to give Jim a head to toe appraisal. There was a point in Jim’s life when he would have said something flirty about the situation, but now he just stands still and waits for the final verdict. </p><p>“I approve. Spock won’t know what hit him.”</p><p>Jim’s eyes soften. “That’s the plan.”</p><p>Nyota gives him a little push towards the door. “You’re late.”</p><p>“Fuck!” Jim grabs his keys and runs towards the door. He’s halfway down the hallway of his apartment building when he pats his pockets and whirls back towards the kitchen. Nyota already has his phone held out in a long-suffering hand, and Jim pecks her on the cheek as he grabs the phone and finally makes it out. </p><p>It isn’t until Jim’s ten minutes into a silent Lyft that he realizes that Nyota, who went to Oxford, was wearing a white Ole Miss t shirt. </p><p>--<br/>
Jim hates pretentious shit, and he especially hates pretentious shit that pretends not to be pretentious, which makes it ten times more pretentious. It occurs to Jim, as he’s wandering around a street of irritatingly normal looking houses, that he might spend too much time around Bones. He finds the gallery eventually, but by the time he does he’s sweaty and out of breath. </p><p>The greeter, whom Jim assumes is an artist of the pale and emaciated variety, gives Jim a dirty look. “Invitation?” </p><p>Jim pats his pockets, checks his wallet, and his heart drops when he comes up empty handed. Shit, he thinks. I knew I forgot something.</p><p> He’s about to turn on the patented Kirk Charm-It involves a screen siren smile and an ‘aw, shucks’ flutter of the lashes he learned from Bones- when a familiar voice says from behind him, “He is with me.”</p><p>A shiver runs down Jim’s spine at the nearness of Spock’s voice, and he fights the urge to lean back a little, just to see what would happen. </p><p>The waifish man crosses his arms. “And you are?”</p><p>“On the list,” says a woman, her voice coming from just behind the waif. She pulls the waif down to her level and whispers something in his ear. He flushes, then waves Jim and Spock into the gallery lobby with a flapping hand. </p><p>The woman fixes Jim with a dissecting sort of look, and Jim scrutinizes her right back. She’s petite and tan, with stern eyes in a fine boned face, and towering braids. After a nod, she guides them through a white, industrial lobby and into another white room filled with beautiful people pretending to eat tiny hors d’oeuvres and absolutely reeking of money. </p><p>Jim really, really wants to do something like lick every single one of the artisanal vegan cheese cubes at the small food spread in the corner. But the thought of wasting food is anathema to him, so he settles for eating one of the cubes and using the toothpick to pick his teeth in the most obnoxious way possible. Small victories. </p><p>When he returns from the food, Spock and the woman from the door are engrossed in what looks like a deeply awkward conversation. Jim uses the trip to get his first actual look at Spock, and after doing so, takes a meandering path around the rest of the room just so he can look a little more. </p><p>Spock hasn’t shed his ubiquitous black, but added to it, in the form of a royal blue waistcoat that does things to Jim in how it looks against Spock’s pale skin and black suit and hair. And the suit? It fits Spock like a glove, and the slim fit shows off every inch of a lean, fit body. </p><p>After Jim can’t ogle Spock from a distance any longer without it getting weird, he joins Spock and the woman. Spock inclines his head in greeting, and says “Jim, this is T’Pring. She is the featured artist of tonight, and my ex-wife.”</p><p>Jim turns up the midwestern with a, “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”  </p><p>“Why?” </p><p>Now Jim can see what Spock saw in her. He smiles sharply, and says, “Why not?”</p><p>T’Pring turns back to Spock with an appraising look. “Your companion is highly aesthetically pleasing. If you do not initiate a sexual relationship with him, I may do so in the future.” </p><p>Spock’s eyes grow wide with horror, and Jim takes pity on him.</p><p>“If your art is also that honest, I look forward to experiencing it," he replies. </p><p>Her mouth twitches into something like a smile. Then she steps closer to Spock and says, with a breathless lack of tact, "You have not come to claim her journal. Your father will not claim it, nor will your siblings. If you do not do this in the next fourteen days, I will dispose of it as I see fit."</p><p>Confused, Jim watches as Spock's fingers tighten around a still-full champagne glass. "It will be done." </p><p>T'Pring nods, and twirls on silver heels to melt into the crowd. </p><p>"So," Jim says, trying to catch Spock's gaze and failing. "What was that about?" </p><p>Spock stares at nothing, still clutching the sweating champagne flute. Finally, he bows his head and says, "My mother and T'Pring were in a car accident fourteen months and eight days ago. The last volume of the journal my mother kept her entire life blocked a piece of metal from killing T'Pring."</p><p>When he doesn't say more, Jim knows the shape of the weight Spock carries with him, and Jim wishes with everything he has that he could carry it instead. </p><p>"She was a special kind of person," he says eventually. Spock gives him a sharp look. </p><p>"Did you know my mother?"</p><p>Jim shakes his head. "No." Then he raises his own champagne glass and says, "But I know you."</p><p>Spock doesn't answer, and thankfully, it’s time to mingle. And if Jim thought he was good at schmoozing, he has nothing on Spock, which is so weird to watch that Jim does just that. It’s not like Spock’s going to up to people with a smile and a handshake, but when people come up to him Spock directs the conversation so that he barely has to say anything, and the other person walks away feeling genuinely listened to, even if Jim can tell Spock’s mind is on something much heavier.</p><p>“Blink twice if you’ve been body snatched by aliens with an appreciation for elitist art snobs,” mutters Jim, angling his head close to Spock’s after the fourth such conversation. </p><p>Spock doesn’t blink, but he does raise an eyebrow. “If I had been body snatched by such aliens, why would they allow me a way to communicate?”</p><p>“Touché.” Jim takes a drink of champagne. “But how are you this good at the whole-“ He does a vague hand wave in the direction of the other guests. </p><p>“Jim,” Spock says with what could either be fondness or the voice he uses on particularly slow students, “My father is a diplomat. I spent my childhood attending formal functions not dissimilar to this one.” A shadow comes over his face, and he says quietly, “When I was a child, I found the social expectations for events like these much easier to learn than those of a playground, or a birthday party.”</p><p>A few pieces fit together in Jim’s mind, and he nods in understanding. “I was the class clown. That way, everyone would think I was failing because I didn’t care, and not because my ADHD made everything so much harder.” </p><p>It comes out bitter and hard, but the same black undercurrent colors Spock’s voice. “I learned very early that children have the capacity for great kindness and great cruelty, but if you are autistic and dyslexic, you see a great deal of one and very little of the other.”</p><p>Jim chuckles darkly. “Ain’t that the truth. But hey, can any one of them say that they’re the youngest computer science department head in the country?”</p><p>Spock considers. Something flickers in his eyes, and he stands up even taller, which Jim didn’t think was even possible, given Spock’s already perfect posture. “No, they cannot.”</p><p>Soon, a bunch of old white guys climb a stage and introduce the gallery, and while Jim’s zoning out on principle he can’t stop thinking about Spock’s comments about his early life. It’s infuriating that anyone could treat Spock as badly as Jim suspected they had, but the overwhelming thing he feels is-pride. Not some patronizing bullshit about Spock ~overcoming disabilities~,  but pride that Spock, in spirit if not in action, said ‘Watch this, fuckers’ and went on to be brilliant and kind and curious. </p><p>It takes Jim’s breath away, that Spock has trusted him with this. </p><p>The exhibit opening saves him from drowning in the depths of his feelings, and so Jim concentrates on the art. Which works for all of five minutes, until Jim can’t pretend to take cubes and spheres and one single line of black paint on a giant canvas seriously anymore. </p><p>He glances at the tension in Spock’s shoulders, and switches gears. When they come to the next giant black cube, Jim leans right up next to it and pretends to adjust a pair of glasses. </p><p>“Ah yes, I can see how this truly exemplifies the anti-anti-post-post modernism movement,” he says, nodding in mock gravity.</p><p>With equal gravity, Spock tilts his head and says, “You are mistaken. ‘Black Cube One’ clearly emulates the aesthetic theory of the anti-anti-post-post-structuralism movement.”</p><p>A young girl with a notebook on the other side of Jim looks scandalized, and she stomps away to observe ‘Black Cube Two’. </p><p>Jim’s mouth twitches, and then he can’t help the snicker that escapes, and one look at Spock’s desperate struggle to contain his own amusement sends him over the edge. He laughs, big wheezing gut laughs, until he really can’t breathe, and tears are streaming down his face. His legs can’t support him anymore, and he grabs onto Spock’s arms for support without thinking. </p><p>Then, when he remembers how to think, he quickly lets go and apologizes. Spock gives him an almost imperceptible but genuine smile and tells him, “Jim, I am not so fragile as to not know my own boundaries. When you have crossed one, I will inform you.”</p><p>They’re so close and Jim’s head is full of champagne and laughter, and Jim thinks he could live in this moment forever. It’s big and golden and endless. </p><p>But Jim gets a phone call, and the golden haze of happiness disappears as his world comes crashing down. He hangs up slowly. </p><p>“What has happened?” asks Spock, concern clear in his eyes. </p><p>Jim grips Spock’s shoulders, because his legs don’t remember how to support him.</p><p>“It’s Bones. There’s been an accident.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The drive to the hospital is fast and silent. Spock wouldn’t let Jim drive, so Jim stares out the window the entire time. On the outside, he’s sure he looks tense but fine. Inside, a choking, tearing hurricane consumes him until everything is just static. Somehow, Jim gets from the car to the waiting room. He, in the part of his brain that isn’t static, suspects Spock had something to do with it. The in-take lady tells him that Dr. McCoy is in emergency surgery, but won’t give him any other information. Jim walks numbly to where Spock is in the waiting room, and collapses into the chair next to him.  </p>
<p>“He’s in surgery now,” says Jim. “They wouldn’t tell me how bad it was.” He closes his eyes and drops his head into his hands. This isn’t how the world is supposed to work.<em> This isn’t how the world is supposed to work.</em> And suddenly, Jim is blisteringly angry, full of white hot rage at absolutely nothing. His hands curl into fists, and his breathing slows for a fight that isn’t coming. </p>
<p>Then, it’s gone, replaced. by a howling, shrieking fear. “I just want to know, I can’t take not knowing.”</p>
<p>Jim doesn’t know if he says it to himself or Spock.  There’s a hand on his back, heavy and still, and the weight of it tethers Jim to reality. </p>
<p>“I cannot predict the outcome of Dr. McCoy’s surgery. I have no way of knowing his condition, the competence of his surgeons, or the likelihood of any complications arising during the surgery. So I will not lie to you and tell you that it will be alright, because I cannot ensure that it will be so.”</p>
<p>A flash of anger courses through Jim, a kneejerk reaction. But then he thinks about the senseless platitudes someone else might have tried on him, how meaningless they all are, and Jim’s grateful that Spock respects him enough to be honest with him. </p>
<p>And then Spock continues, “But I will not leave you to bear the weight of any outcome alone.”</p>
<p>If Jim hadn’t burned away his tears a lifetime ago, this is when he might have finally cried. But he doesn’t. Instead, he lifts his head from his hands and looks, really looks, at Spock’s face. At the steady warmth in his eyes, eyes that don’t let Jim turn away. </p>
<p>“Do you promise?” Jim asks softly, because a lifetime of leaving and being left has taught him to take nothing for granted. </p>
<p>“I promise, Jim.” </p>
<p>Jim lifts his head up even more and puts a hand on Spock’s arm. “Can I?”</p>
<p>Spock nods, and Jim pulls him into a hug, because fuck if Jim doesn’t need one right now. He doesn’t expect Spock to reciprocate, and it means more than Jim can put into words that when Jim tries to pull away after a brief moment, Spock tightens his arms around Jim’s back. </p>
<p>He feels more than hears Spock’s low, “Stay, until you are ready.” And Jim does, he doesn’t know how much time passes until he pulls away, for real this time.<br/>When he does, Jim feels lighter. Not happier, but like more of a person. He doesn’t say thank you, because he knows that Spock already knows. In the eternity that passes in the waiting room, Jim tells Spock about Bones. </p>
<p>He talks about Bones’ little girl that the doctor never gets to see, the holidays Jim spent with Bones when they were deployed, and the better ones they spent at Bones’ family home in Georgia. He talks about meeting Bones on the bus to RTC, both of them hungover and angry at the world, when Bones warned Jim that he might throw up on him and told him in a cloud of whiskey breath, that all he had left was his bones. And after he did throw up on Jim and Jim stole his whiskey as compensation, they’ve been brothers ever since. </p>
<p>Spock listens, letting Jim talk himself hoarse. The white noise of the waiting room lulls Jim to sleep,  until a bolt of guilt makes him jump to his feet. </p>
<p>Then, a blonde nurse comes up and asks, “Are either of you James Kirk?</p>
<p>“I am.” Jim holds his breath. </p>
<p>She smiles at him. “He’s out of surgery now and in recovery. You can go see him in a few minutes.” </p>
<p>Relief crashes through Jim, and he grips Spock’s arm for support. “Thank you,” Jim manages to say to the nurse. </p>
<p>Jim charms her into letting Spock come too. She warns them that Bones isn’t awake yet, and won’t be able to hold much of a conversation when he does wake up. Somewhere between pulling up one of the uncomfortable chairs next to the bed and actually sitting in it, the overwhelming relief is replaced by horror at how much of a miracle it is that Bones is still alive. </p>
<p>Bones is covered in bandages and bruises, with tubes and wires running all over and through him. Half of his thick brown hair is shaved, and where his hospital gown has slipped, Jim can see a line of stitches cutting from his collarbone down his chest. And there are two giant plaster casts encasing his legs from ankle to hip. He looks so much more fragile than Jim ever thought he could be. </p>
<p>“He is alive, and he will recover,” Spock says. He sounds certain, and Jim needs certain now more than anything. </p>
<p>Jim attempts a smile. “Yeah, and if I know Bones, he’ll recover more quickly than he should, because he takes the entire experience as a personal insult.”<br/>He takes one of Bones’ hands, which by some miracle are only scratched and bruised, not broken. After about twenty minutes, Bones wakes up, groggy and slow. He blinks a few times, his eyes taking a while to settle on Jim. </p>
<p>“Hey, Bones,” says Jim. “How do you feel?” He knows it’s a stupid question, but nothing gets Bones going like the opportunity to point out, loudly and gleefully, when Jim is being stupid. </p>
<p>Bones squints at him. “Like shit.” He blinks a few more times, and casts a judgmental look at Jim’s outfit.  “Jim,” he drawls, “I dunno who let you walk out of the house like that, but I’m pretty sure your suit matches Nana’s couch. From the seventies.”</p>
<p>Jim splutters. “It was an art thing. Besides, what the fuck do you know about fashion?”</p>
<p>Bones rolls his eyes, and snipes something back at Jim. In the relief of their conversation, Jim doesn’t notice Spock slipping out into the hallway. <br/>--<br/>He cannot stand to be in the room, in the wing, in the hospital at all. So Spock leaves Jim and Dr. McCoy to their reunion, and flees the building in favor of the small garden next to it, built for just this purpose. There are several benches in the garden, but he fears that if he sits down, he will not be able to get back up. </p>
<p>The weight on his shoulders has never been so heavy, so close and suffocating. He knows that it is not real, knows that it is illogical to act as though it is. But in the fourteen months, eight days, and fourteen minutes that he has known this burden, Spock has learned that logic means nothing to grief. </p>
<p>Logic could not protect his mother from the senseless violence of a drunk teenager and an expensive car.</p>
<p>Spock tilts his head up to the vast night sky and reflects on the memories and emotions threatening to drown him. He will not let them. But he closes his eyes, and lets them try. </p>
<p>He finds that he is irrationally angry at Dr. McCoy and Jim, and consequentially sick with guilt at the anger. But, as he looks at the emotion longer, Spock knows and accepts that his anger is misdirected. He is angry, that tonight Jim walked into a hospital room and said hello, when fourteen  months, eight days, and sixteen minutes ago, Spock walked into an identical room and said goodbye. </p>
<p>This is unfair. It is unfair in the cruelest of ways, but if Spock has learned one lesson better than any other it is that life is unfair. And he lets the anger and the guilt go. The grief stays, but it is lighter than it was before. </p>
<p>Spock opens his eyes and looks at the stars. <br/>--<br/>Back in the hospital room, the banter has run out. </p>
<p>“Bones,” Jim says, letting the smile he’d been holding onto drop. “What happened? All they told me was that there was an accident.”</p>
<p>A silence fills the room, the kind you only feel if there’s a secret everyone else is in on but you. </p>
<p>Bones looks at him and swallows. “My memory isn’t great, with the pain meds and shit. But Jim,” and Jim has never seen fear so plain on Bones’ face, “It wasn’t an accident. The person who hit me drove the wrong way up a one way street to hit me.”</p>
<p>Jim’s blood runs cold. “You’re sure?”</p>
<p>“I was the only person on the street.”</p>
<p>There’s a noise behind Jim, and he jumps halfway out of his chair before he realizes that it’s Spock. </p>
<p>“Did I miss something?” Spock asks. </p>
<p>Jim tries for a smile. It doesn’t come. “Yeah. Bones isn’t the victim of a car accident, he’s the victim of attempted murder.”</p>
<p>The portly officer who takes Bones’ statement brings a disturbing piece of evidence with him. </p>
<p>“The paramedics who brought you in said that this was on your chest,” Officer Reyes says as he gives Bones a stack of evidence photos. “Can you tell us anything about it?”</p>
<p>Jim discretely cranes his head to see the photos as well, but Reyes’ stomach blocks his view. He tries to give Spock, on the other side of the hospital bed, subtle clues via hand signals and eyebrow semaphore to look at the photos discretely. Spock gets the message, but refuses to look. Traitor. </p>
<p>He watches as Bones flips through the photos with a frown that deepens after each one. After a minute or two, Bones looks up from the hospital bed and shrugs. <br/>“I’m gonna be honest with you, Officer. I have no idea what it says, who put it there, or why they tried to kill me.” He gestures to Jim with a hand. “But Jim’s a genius with this kind of thing, mind if he takes a look at it?”</p>
<p>The portly officer shrugs. “Our boys can’t make anything out of it, knock yourself out.”</p>
<p>Bones hands Jim the stack of photos. The first few document a plain red envelope, and Jim quickly moves on. The next photo shows the outside of a children’s birthday card, blue with glittery flowers. Something in Jim’s stomach curdles, and he flips to the last photo slowly.</p>
<p>It’s a message, written in a code bastardized from at least a dozen others. It reads: </p>
<p>Hello, Jim. Did you miss me?</p>
<p>Something dark in Jim, something that’s been festering for a lifetime, shifts in Jim’s mind. Not relaxes, but settles, luxuriates in being proven right. </p>
<p>“I knew he wasn’t dead,” Jim says softly. It isn’t a gentle kind of soft, it’s the inhale of a sniper before he pulls the trigger. </p>
<p>Inhale. Spock and Officer Reyes ask the obvious question. Bones doesn’t. </p>
<p>Exhale. “My foster father, Kodos Karidian.”</p>
<p>Pull the trigger. He leaves the room. Spock follows.<br/>--<br/>“Spock, if you want answers, get in line.” Jim’s outside the hospital, on the sidewalk with his back against the beige stucco. </p>
<p>Spock settles next to him, getting his pristine suit covered in dust. “I want answers, but not if you are unwilling to give them freely.”</p>
<p>And Jim can’t deal with his kindness. It grates against the dark thing, twisted with anger and fear. “I don’t need to be babysat,” he snaps. “You can leave.”</p>
<p>“Do you want me to leave?” And fuck, Jim hasn’t heard Spock sound that detached and clinical since the they met four months ago. It feels like a lifetime.  </p>
<p>Jim scrubs a hand over his eyes. “Yes. No. Maybe.” </p>
<p>“Then I will stay until you make up your mind,” says Spock. When Jim turns his head and sees only steadfast calm and compassion in Spock’s face, he has to look away. He doesn’t deserve what he is being offered because Spock has no idea who he’s really offering it to. </p>
<p>“So help me,” Jim challenges as he closes the space between them in a few short steps. He reaches out and puts a hand on Spock’s shoulder, so lightly that Spock could shrug it off effortlessly. But he doesn’t.</p>
<p>Jim’s breath catches in his chest as Spock’s deep brown eyes linger on his mouth and drag their way up to meet Jim’s gaze. There’s a turbulence behind Spock’s heavy look, and if Jim were a better man, he would have paid more attention to that.</p>
<p>Instead, Jim takes a leap of faith and brings them together in a searing kiss that for a moment, narrows Jim’s world to the softness of Spock’s mouth and a heady rush when Spock deepens the kiss. </p>
<p>But only for a moment, because then Spock steps back with a jerk. </p>
<p>“You were the only person who has ever asked before touching me.” His eyes are wide and bright with a fear that Jim doesn’t understand. Spock steps even further back from Jim, and asks, raw and plaintive, “Why didn’t you <em>ask</em>?”</p>
<p> “Wait, Spock, 1-“ But he’s already gone. </p>
<p>And Jim realizes, far too late, that self-destruction never self-contained. He’s rooted to the spot, staring where Spock was just moments earlier. </p>
<p>What have I done, he thinks. Oh God, what have I done?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello, lovely readers. This chapter will feature discussion on consent, but there is no dub-con or anything in that vein. If you would rather not read this discussion, skip to the scene break with two asterisks.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The aftermath is not pretty. Jim can barely stand to look at himself, and so he does everything in his power not to. When Bones is released from the hospital and settled back into their apartment, Jim throws himself into taking care of his friend. He spends every waking minute busy with class and research and Bones, because if he keeps pushing his mind and body the mantra <em> your fault your fault your fault </em> stays in the background of his life. </p>
<p>In theory. In actuality, Jim wears his guilt like a second skin and doesn’t try to let it leave. Why would he? He fucked up, now he’s facing the consequences. </p>
<p>A week after Jim destroyed his life, Nyota knocks at his door when she knows Bones is asleep. And true to her promise in June, she tears into him and Jim just takes it, because he broke that promise and he deserves her anger. When she’s done, she moves past him and brushes a kiss to Bones’ cheek. She leaves without a second look back at Jim. </p>
<p>And if hurting Spock wasn’t bad enough, there’s Bones. He’s healing, but it’s a painful, ugly process made all the more so by the fact that every time Jim helps Bones with a shower or the side effects of his medications, he’s reminded that Bones is like this because of Jim.  </p>
<p>Even Thor prefers Bones to Jim at the moment, sticking close to the injured doctor all the time. </p>
<p>So Jim lives like this, as September slips into October. By mid-October, though, he gets an intervention via pissed off Southern doctor. One morning, when Jim’s modifying Bones’ wheelchair because it’s an engineering monstrosity, Bones sets down his coffee and sighs.  “Jim, we need to talk.”</p>
<p>Jim ignores him, and continues fixing the wheelchair. But Bones has had a decade to know how to deal with him, and he does so with all the delicacy of a steamroller.<br/>
“Alright, fine. We’ll do this the hard way. If you don’t talk to me, I’ll pull some very nasty medical strings and make you go talk to a professional.” At Jim’s snort, Bones snaps, “And as your PCP, I can make it mandatory.”</p>
<p>He weighs the socket wrench in his hand for a moment, then drags himself up to the kitchen table across from Bones. Jim knows when he’s beat, at least when it comes to Bones. </p>
<p>Bones makes him retell, like a dentist pulling teeth, what happened with Spock. And then, like a dentist pulling extra teeth just for fun, he makes Jim talk about how he feels about the situation with words like ‘trauma’ and ‘guilt’ and ‘headspace.’ When Jim’s done with his emotional root canal, Bones shakes his head. </p>
<p>“Look, you fucked up,” he says bluntly. </p>
<p>Jim glares at him. “Wow, thank you, I really needed help figuring that one out.”</p>
<p>“But,” Bones continues. “So did Spock. He told you ages ago that if you ever crossed a boundary of his, he would tell you. And I believe him. He’s not exactly shy about sharing his opinions.” </p>
<p>“I didn’t give him a chance,” argues Jim, his hands curling and uncurling in his lap. “I was out of my mind with anger and fear, but so what? I still should have known better and asked.”</p>
<p>Bones nods. “Yeah, you should have. But in the past, when Spock doesn’t want to be touched, what has he done?”</p>
<p>“He tells me,” Jim answers immediately. There were several times when he’d read Spock’s body language entirely wrong, and gotten a firm, “Not now” before Jim had even moved his arm or hand. Then he thinks. “He didn’t tell me this time. And he kissed me back.”</p>
<p>“Which could mean a lot of things,” points out Bones. “The responsibility is still on you for not asking when you know he’s got a thing about being touched. But I think both of you were reacting to something painful, and that makes people do things they never normally would.”</p>
<p>They just sit there for a bit, while Bones scratches Thor’s ears and Jim stares at the floor. Jim knows himself well enough that he’s always going to be the kind of person who, in messy situations, shoulders the blame. He still doesn’t agree with Bones that Spock shares in that blame, but Bones has helped him see the guilt for what it is. </p>
<p>Eventually, Jim sits up straight and smiles at Bones. It’s his first real smile in weeks, and it’s a little small, but it’s there. “Thanks, I mean it.”</p>
<p>Bones raises his eyebrows over his coffee cup. “I know. Now, let’s talk about how you can’t look at me without getting that kicked puppy look on your face.” </p>
<p>And, nope, Jim’s had enough free therapy for today, thank you very much. “Sorry, I’ve got plans to do literally anything else than talk about that.” </p>
<p>Bones rolls his eyes, because he and Jim both know that they’ll talk about it sooner or later. “And what might those plans be?”</p>
<p>Jim pulls on one of his nicer shirts and grabs one of Bones’ many ‘sorry that your legs and ribs and shoulder were crushed’ floral bouquets. “Lunch, Bones. Lunch.”</p>
<p>-**<br/>
It’s not that Jim doesn’t have a grandmother. In fact, he has two of them. Probably. But even if he knew their names, addresses, or even if they were still alive, Jim would still choose his next door neighbor over either of them. </p>
<p>“Mrs. Alvarez,” he calls through her front door. It takes a few minutes, but soon the tell tale rattle and clunk of her jewelry and cane makes it to the door.<br/>
After she opens the door, the tiny Mexican woman pulls Jim into a complicated hug and cheek kiss routine that the two of them have worked out to a science. Jim answers the usual questions about how much he’s eating-Not enough, how Bones is doing-Good, but he’d be better if you went to see him Mrs. Alvarez, and if he’s seen the latest episode of the Bachlorette-Yes, of course. </p>
<p>Her apartment smells like dusty floral perfume, coffee, and cumin. It’s small, and the furniture is a little worn and scuffed, but it’s bright and homey with the love of someone who takes great pride in keeping it that way. The crucifixes everywhere still freak Jim out a little, but he keeps his thoughts on religion firmly to himself.<br/>
He deposits the flowers in the glass vase waiting for them, and follows Mrs. Alvarez into her kitchen, where she’s strapping on an apron like armor. </p>
<p>“You’re just in time,” says Mrs. Alvarez. She points to a row of vegetables, a wooden cutting board, and a very big knife. “Chop, chop.” </p>
<p>Jim washes his hands and gets to it. An old Spanish love song warbles from the ancient radio perched in the kitchen window, and with a sly grin Jim starts singing along. </p>
<p>Mrs. Alvarez joins in, and together they perform a rousing, if utterly tuneless, duet over sizzling vegetables and beef. </p>
<p>When everything is nearly done but not quite, Jim tries to sneak a bite. Mrs. Alvarez, who has superhuman senses attuned to only this situation in particular, smacks his hand with a wooden spoon without even looking at Jim. </p>
<p>“No stealing,” she says sternly. But her cloudy brown eyes are crinkled with amusement, and she gives him a push to the silverware drawer. </p>
<p>Jim sets the table obligingly, and teases, “Mrs. Alvarez, one of these days I’ll get past you.”</p>
<p>She snorts and leans over to poke at the beef. “Over my dead body.”</p>
<p>The finished lunch is probably the best thing Jim’s ever eaten in his life, and it will only be overtaken by whatever Mrs. Alvarez makes next Saturday. Jim makes sure to shower his host in compliments.</p>
<p> She waves all of them off, but the faint blush on her tan, wrinkled cheeks tells Jim everything he needs to know, which is that he’s accomplished what he sets out to do every Saturday at 11am. The goal, of course, is to make Mrs. Alvarez smile. </p>
<p>He hasn’t failed yet. After a disastrous first week in San Francisco, Mrs. Alvarez browbeat a hungover Jim into her kitchen, handed him a cup of the strongest coffee Jim’s ever had, and set him to work chopping vegetables and fixing the leaky sink. Jim didn’t do much talking that first Saturday, but Mrs. Alvarez more than made up for it with a constant stream of conversation about her kids, grandkids, and her beloved soaps. </p>
<p>It took Jim back to a place with his own grandparents that he only had the faintest memories of, a place filled with warmth and love. Lunch and minor home repairs with Mrs. Alvarez became a weekly tradition after Jim wanted to find a way to repay her for the kindness of the first, and realized that the kids and grandkids she always talked about never came to visit. </p>
<p>The lunch is as much a staple of Jim’s week as chess with Spock is. Or was. Thinking about Spock squeezes something in Jim’s chest, and he doesn’t eat nearly as much as he usually does. </p>
<p>Mrs. Alvarez reaches across the table and puts her hand on Jim’s. “What’s wrong? And don’t tell me nothing, you are a terrible liar.”</p>
<p>“I hurt someone, someone I really care about,” Jim confesses. “And I don’t know how to fix it.”</p>
<p>She nods with a sage understanding. “Did I ever tell you about the fight that nearly tore my dear Arturo and I apart?"</p>
<p>Jim shakes his head. Mrs. Alvarez has spent considerable time telling him about every other aspect of her and her deceased husband’s whirlwind courtship, however. </p>
<p>“Well,” she says. “I wanted to see the world, and leave the little town we had spent our entire lives in. Arturo had many wonderful qualities, but a sense of adventure was not one of them. He wanted to stay close to his family, and raise our children where we had roots. A month before our wedding, we had a fight I’m sure the entire town could hear. I left in tears, and didn’t speak to him for a week.”</p>
<p>“What happened?”</p>
<p>In lieu of an answer, Mrs. Alvarez stands up and makes her slow way to a shelf, which she takes something from before settling back at the table with a huff. She sets a small wooden box down on the table, and opens the lid reverently. </p>
<p>“We couldn’t find the words in person, so we wrote each other love letters.” She lifts out a stack of yellowed, carefully preserved envelopes, and a shadow flits across her face. </p>
<p>“I remember how he’d rush to make sure I got his letter before the end of the day, and how I spent hours making sure mine was perfect.” A soft smile tugs at her mouth.  “It worked. And we wrote each other letters every week for over fifty years.”</p>
<p>As Jim loses Mrs. Alvarez to the memory of her late husband, a seed of hope plants itself in Jim’s heart.  </p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Spock receives the first letter on a Monday. It’s cold, blustery, and entirely unfitting for San Francisco in October. He picks up the letter encased in a thick, creamy envelope. His fingers are wrapped in bandages from the cello. He doesn’t read the letter until Friday, and lets it sit on the dusty chess set until he can’t stand to walk past it anymore. </p>
<p>If Spock were Jim, he would get drunk before opening it. But Spock is not Jim, and so he simply seals off his heart and assumes a cool, clinical mindset before slicing the envelope like a cadaver. </p>
<p>It reads like this. </p>
<p> <em>Spock,<br/>
I’m sorry. I hurt you, and that is something I can’t live with myself for doing. But instead of telling you that I’m sorry, I’m going to show you. I’m not asking for you to forgive me, but just to listen. I don’t know why you don’t like being touched without asking, and you don’t ever have to tell me if you don’t want to. That’s okay. I should have asked that night, and it doesn’t matter that I was spiraling into something dark and heavy, because I still should have asked. And the part I really hate myself for is that I could tell that it wasn’t the right time for both of us, you had this look in your eyes that scared me a little, and I did it anyway, and I’m so sorry. I just need you to know that. I’m sorry that I destroyed this thing we had, and I’m even more sorry that I knew I would do it and still did it anyway.<br/>
Bones calls it being self destructive. I call it a fool proof tactic for an intact heart. But I played myself. I hurt you, and because of that I broke my own heart. God, Spock. I miss playing chess, and playing tour guide to the weird parts of San Francisco even though this is your city, and hearing you argue with Bones about things I didn’t even know it was possible to argue about. I miss how nobody else seems to see how expressive you are, because it meant that every imperceptible smile and laugh was just between us. We share a lot of languages, but that one was my favorite. Thor misses you too, she doesn’t want to go to Rose Park without you. I’m not trying to guilt trip you into forgiving me, I need you to know that I know how much of my life I crumbled when I hurt you like I did.<br/>
I hope that when Mars is visible next week, you get a chance to see it. I hope that you play that Shostakovich concerto the way you want, and that somebody other than you will get to hear it. I hope you finally usurp Sulu as the tea wizard. I hope your research is going well. I hope that you are content, and warm, and not alone.<br/>
Yours,<br/>
JTK</em></p>
<p>Spock reads the letter. He doesn’t need to read it more than once, because his memory burns every word into his mind the first time through. But he does read it again, this time running bandaged fingertips over every line.</p>
<p>It is so very Jim, which is why, after a third read, Spock drops the letter into his crackling fireplace. He watches as the paper curls in on itself, white to black to nothing. When it has disintegrated into ash, Spock returns to his cello and wipes clean the blood from the fingerboard. </p>
<p>He doesn’t play Shostakovich. Instead, he plays scales and arpeggios, ignoring the pain in his wrists and fingers and neck as he loses himself in the pursuit of simple perfection. </p>
<p>Spock gets the second letter on a rainy Wednesday. It is also Halloween, which Spock notes but does not think further on. When he returns from collecting his mail, Nyota is in his kitchen, making mint tea for herself and jasmine for Spock. She makes it too weak for Spock’s taste, but he will never tell her this. </p>
<p>“Will you talk to me?” she asks from across his kitchen table. </p>
<p>He sips the scalding tea and considers. “I will talk to you. But you must not talk to me about Jim.” </p>
<p>Nyota nods, and as Spock listens to her talk about her students and research and Dr. McCoy, he watches her hands. They are strong and elegant and as beautiful as the rest of her, and for a singular moment Spock wishes he could have loved Nyota as something other than a friend. But that moment passes when her hands remain still and folded, so unlike the broad and calloused hands that dance in his dreams. </p>
<p>She lets him get away with not talking today, but Spock knows his friend well, and Nyota will return soon. Spock sees her to the door, and before Nyota leaves she turns to him and holds him in place with her steady gaze. “Promise me you’ll talk to someone,” she murmurs. “Even if they can’t hear you.”</p>
<p>Spock nods, and does not promise anything. But Nyota’s words linger as he reads the second letter. </p>
<p>
  <em></em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Spock,<br/>
I’m going to assume you read my first letter, but if you didn’t, I understand. So just in case, I’m going to start this one the same way. I’m sorry that I hurt you that night at the hospital. I should have asked before I touched you, and it was beyond wrong of me to not do that. I won’t ask you to forgive me, because I don’t believe that forgiveness is something that can be bartered for so easily. What I do believe is that apologies don’t mean shit unless you do something, so here's what I will do.<br/>
I will ask. Always. I will ask before I brush against your arm. I will ask before I give you a hug. I will ask when I’m wide awake, and I will ask when I’m exhausted. For the rest of my life, I will ask and I will know your ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ better than I know my own name. And I will do this whether or not we ever become more than the strangers I made us into. Not because I want something from you, but because it is the least I can do.<br/>
Yours,<br/>
JTK</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em></em>
</p>
<p>He stares at the letter, seeing the messy scrawl of ink but not reading it. His chest hurts, and Spock does not know why. (This is a lie. Spock knows exactly why his chest hurts; it does so because that is the cost of being seen after a lifetime of being left in the dark.)</p>
<p>When he plays tonight, Spock does not play Shostakovich. But before he plays Kol Nidrei, he opens the window. Just in case someone is listening. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Spock receives the third letter on a sunny day in mid November.</p>
<p>It reads like this. </p>
<p>
  <em>Spock,<br/>
This is my last letter. Not because I don’t have anything else to say to you, because I could spend a lifetime talking to you and not run out of things to say (although you would definitely run out of ways to tell me to stop talking). This is my last letter, because I know what it’s like to not be allowed to forget something, and I can’t do that to you. But I’ll begin this letter like the others, just in case this is the only one you read. I’m sorry that I hurt you that night at the hospital. I should have asked before I kissed you, and I should have seen that you were just as hurt as I was before I went and hurt you more. I promised in my last letter that even if we only ever met again as strangers, I will forever and always ask. I took that oath, and I will uphold it as long as I live.<br/>
There’s one more thing I’ll do as long as I live, but I have to tell you in person.<br/>
Yours,<br/>
JTK</em>
</p>
<p>Spock does not burn this letter, or look at it without comprehending the words on the page. Instead, he picks up a pen and begins to write. When the letter is done, Spock seals it in a blue envelope and tucks it in the pocket of his long winter coat. After he discretely deposits the letter in Jim’s mailbox, Spock goes to the rose and rock garden for the first time in two months, five days, and eight minutes. </p>
<p>The roses that surrounded his chess table in the summer are nearly gone, with only two blossoms remaining in the desolate alcove. Spock is alone, until he is not.<br/>
Jim is wearing old sweatpants and a sweater that belongs on the floor of a bowling alley, and there are bags under his eyes that were not there when Spock saw him last. But he is as spectacular as Spock remembers, as brilliant and beautiful and golden. </p>
<p>“Did you mean it,” asks Jim, his eyes wilder than Spock has ever seen them. “What you wrote in your letter, did you mean it?”</p>
<p>He takes a step towards Spock, so hesitant and careful that it pulls Spock’s “Yes” from his mouth and makes it true. Jim closes his eyes and sinks to his knees, his head bowed to his chest. Spock could reach out and touch him if he wanted to. He wants to. </p>
<p>Spock reaches out and down, down, until the tips of his fingers reach Jim’s jaw. He tilts Jim’s head up with a touch so gentle that it almost wasn’t. </p>
<p>“Jim,” says Spock softly. “If you wanted my forgiveness, all you needed to do was ask.”</p>
<p>Jim opens his eyes, and in them Spock sees what Jim could not tell him in his letters. </p>
<p>-<br/>
The visitor hates San Francisco. </p>
<p>She hates the mix of city stink and ocean salt, she hates the vegan restaurants everywhere, she hates that her Air BnB is so expensive, and she really, really hates the feeling of so many people swarming around her like a school of fish. At least in prison, there was order. But San Francisco has two redeeming qualities to the visitor. </p>
<p>One-It’s the city that hosts Goldman and Sing’s Stationary Emporium, which is the only place in the entire United States that sells La Vie Red envelopes. </p>
<p>Two- It’s the city where she will bring James Kirk to his knees.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Things aren’t perfect between him and Spock after that day in the park, but in spite of the trials that come with any new relationship, Jim is happier than he’s ever been. </p>
<p>For example, he takes his promise to Spock with deathly seriousness, and asks before touching him. Every. Single. Time. Which means that he asks Spock "May I?” at least several dozen times a day, and considers Spock’s answer to be law. </p>
<p>By day four, however, Spock’s left eye starts twitching every time Jim opens his mouth. By day five, Spock hauls Jim into his kitchen (in a manner of speaking), and sits him down for a talk. Not one of The Talks Jim knows they need to have sooner or later, but a talk about the whole asking thing. </p>
<p>Spock folds his hands on the table, and Jim is so distracted by the way the afternoon light hits Spock’s hair, that he almost doesn’t hear what Spock says. </p>
<p>“This system is not efficient or effective,” says Spock bluntly. “We must come to an arrangement that is effective, efficient, and practical.”</p>
<p>Jim nods. “I agree. Because there’s no way in hell I’m breaking my promise, but I’d also like for your eye to stop doing that thing.”</p>
<p>“My eye is not ‘doing a thing”, Spock sniffs. “You are experiencing hallucinations.” His eye twitches again. </p>
<p>Jim suppresses a smile. “Yes, dear.”</p>
<p>“I am not a deer, Jim,” says Spock earnestly. “I am a human of the genus homo erectus-“</p>
<p>And Jim’s about to simultaneously apologize for the vague word choice and snort at homo erectus with his inner ten year old, until he sees the mischievous glint in Spock’s eyes and realizes that he’s being fucked with. </p>
<p>“You’re a little bit evil, Spock. You know that?”</p>
<p>“I have no knowledge of any such thing.”</p>
<p>Eventually, they decide that it’s much easier to just let Spock initiate contact most of the time. And, because Jim thinks Spock might actually murder him if he hears Jim ask to touch him one more time, Spock comes up with a nifty little hand signal. </p>
<p>Jim’s charmed, and soon the finger kiss is second nature to him. Most of the time all Spock wants is the finger kiss, which is fine by Jim. But in the evenings, after a long day at Enterprise University being a kickass department head, Spock gets downright cuddly and Jim, after a long day of being a kickass grad student, is more than happy to be used as a human space heater. </p>
<p>In the beginning, Jim only spends an evening or two plus Saturdays with Spock, because he’s terrified that he’ll push his partner (and fuck, when did he start thinking of Spock as his partner?) too far and ruin everything again. But by the third week of December, Nyota has more clothes at Jim’s apartment than Jim does, and Thor’s hair has worked itself into every inch of Spock’s house. </p>
<p>When Jim brings it up to Spock, bracing himself for he doesn’t even know what, Spock just tilts his head and says, “I enjoy your company. If there comes a time when I do not, or if I require time to myself, I will inform you.”</p>
<p>It should scare him, Jim thinks, that he and Spock have so quickly fallen into domesticity. Jim’s only ever had one other serious relationship, and it fell apart before either of them had so much as a toothbrush at the other’s place. But it doesn’t scare him at all, because after the hell of the last three months, having a bookshelf and a dog bowl at Spock’s house isn’t scary at all. </p>
<p>And Jim’s grateful, because if it did, he wouldn’t get treated to the sight he gets on Christmas Eve morning. </p>
<p>It’s after Jim wakes up to an empty bed, and pads downstairs to feed Thor and brew his coffee and Spock’s tea. He hushes Thor’s mealtime yammering, and while the drinks do their thing, Jim slips out of the kitchen to the threshold of the music room. What he sees makes Jim understand what people mean when they wish to die happy, because if this image were his last, Jim would die with a smile on his face. </p>
<p>Spock, in a silk robe that reminds Jim of a desert sunset, his hair winding over a shoulder in a loose braid. Spock, illuminated against the pale morning light. Spock, with his hands arched over the fingerboard and bow as they work together to make something beautiful. Spock, with his eyes closed and a small smile playing at his mouth, while his bowed head sways ever so slightly with the melody. </p>
<p>Jim lets his coffee grow cold. When the last note fades, Jim waits a moment more to savor the look of absolute content on his partner’s face. </p>
<p>“That one’s my favorite,” Jim says as he hands Spock his tea along with a finger kiss. </p>
<p>Spock raises an indulgent eyebrow and returns the touch. “You say that each time I play a new piece.”</p>
<p>“True,” Jim agrees. “But I mean it every time.”<br/>-<br/>It’s New Years Eve, and Jim is a little drunk. Drunk enough to make the Helm’s sea of string lights bob and swirl in a gold haze, but not enough to make him forget his worries. </p>
<p>He’s alone in the Helm’s little loft, drinking a red fruity thing and looking down at the party below. Sulu and Chekov went all out decorating the coffee shop, and Jim watches his friends move together through explosions of silver tinsel, dangly metallic things, and what he thinks might be a portable still. Despite the thing itching at the edges of his mind, Jim can’t help but smile as tendrils of teasing arguments, fits of drunken giggles, and occasional sober remarks drift up to him. There’s one voice in particular he doesn’t hear, which worries him more than it should. </p>
<p>Twin ‘thunks’ on the floor behind him put that worry to rest.</p>
<p>“You look about as cheerful as a funeral,” says Bones as he crutches over to lean against the loft railing next to Jim. </p>
<p>Jim takes another swallow of the red fruity thing. “Depends on the funeral.” </p>
<p>“So it’s that kind of a night.” Bones taps the end of a crutch against the railing a few times, and sighs. “Spit it out, kid. Did something happen with Spock?” The ‘again’ goes unsaid.</p>
<p>Jim shakes his head. “No, nothing like that. We’re-“ He looks down and finds his partner nodding somberly at a very drunk Chekov. “We’re good, really good. It’s the other thing I can’t stop thinking about.”</p>
<p>“What other thing?” asks Bones, using his elbows to keep his crutches upright while he gesticulates with his hands, and proves Jim’s point for him. </p>
<p>It’s a little unbelievable, actually. Incredulous, Jim points to the crutches. “Bones, in case you forgot, someone tried to murder you three months ago.”</p>
<p>Bones glares at him. “Really? They did? So I haven’t been taking sponge baths for three months just for shits and giggles?”</p>
<p>“This isn’t funny,” snaps Jim. “The police have given up on the case, we have no new information, and my gut tells me that whoever did this to you is just getting started.”</p>
<p>“Jim, the cops don’t have anything new because nothing new has happened,” argues Bones. “And at least we know it’s not your foster father. I was there when you called Chris, and my gut tells me that he wouldn’t lie to you, not about that.”</p>
<p>Pike had sworn to Jim on that call, just like he did sixteen years ago, that he knew with absolute certainty that Kodos was dead. And just like he did sixteen years ago, he said without saying that he would never tell Jim how he was so certain. </p>
<p>Jim sighs, his anger fading. “I know he wouldn’t, and that’s what worries me. If it isn’t Kodos, who the hell hates me enough to do this?”</p>
<p>The truth is that Jim isn’t worried about his own safety. No, the thing that keeps Jim up at night is the fact that whoever did this went after Bones. Which means that they know who the important people in Jim’s life are, which means that they know about Spock. And it’s not that Jim thinks Spock can’t take care of himself, he knows he can. But Jim knows the play this person is making, and it always ends the same way. </p>
<p>After a while, Jim goes downstairs and tries to mingle. He talks engineering with an incoherent Scotty, he dances with a glittering Nyota, and no one notices the tension in his smile, or the fact that he’s nursed the same drink for four hours. </p>
<p>Well, almost no one.</p>
<p>“You are troubled,” says Spock, materializing next to Jim, who’s given up on being a social butterfly in favor of sitting at the coffee bar and picking apart Styrofoam cups. </p>
<p>Spock holds out two fingers, and Jim returns the kiss with a half smile. “Have I ever told you how good you look in black?”</p>
<p>“You have done so seventeen times, which is only half as often as you have told me how I appear <em> out</em> of black.”</p>
<p>Jim looks sideways at Spock and gives him a genuine smile, his first of the night. “Well, make it eighteen times. You look fantastic.” And Spock does, in his usual black turtleneck and black slacks and black hair pulled into a sleek bun. But Jim loves Spock for more than his looks, and so he asks, “How was the lab this morning?”</p>
<p>“It was quiet and empty, and therefore optimal for completing my work,” answers Spock. “The agency will not be pleased with my assessment of their security protocols.”</p>
<p>Even though Spock is a pacifist and busy running the best computer science program on the West Coast, he occasionally takes on side projects for various acronymed agencies. Jim thinks it’s hilarious, because the agencies come to Spock expecting a pat on the back and a gold star, and leave tearfully clutching the pieces of their multi-billion dollar programs. </p>
<p>“Good,” says Jim. After spending a decade realizing that the institution he signed his life to is way more about imperialism and jingoism and other ethically dubious -isms than what Jim actually signed up for, Spock’s success at irritating the military industrial complex is more than a little satisfying to Jim. </p>
<p>Before Spock can respond, Nyota wanders over to the bar. Her red lipstick is smudged and she’s missing an earring, but she doesn’t wobble at all in her ridiculously tall and thin heels. </p>
<p>“The thingy’s happnening soon,” she says as she tries and fails to hold Jim’s amused look. “I’s the big one, with the numbers and balls.” She nods solemnly. “Great big ones.”</p>
<p>Jim stifles a laugh, and talks to her while Spock switches her drink for a glass of water. “Thanks, we’ll be there soon.” She pats him on the head, grabs her water, and blows a kiss to Spock. </p>
<p>“I am thankful for our friends,” says Spock softly. </p>
<p>“Me too. Let’s go join them, before we miss the ball drop.” They join the small crowd in front of the projector Scotty rigged up, just in time for the countdown. Sulu and his husband are intertwined on Jim’s right, Bones and Nyota on the other side of Spock. The sparkling, joyful anticipation builds as the announcer starts the countdown. </p>
<p>“Ten, nine, eight-”</p>
<p>Jim holds out his fingers. Spock looks at them, and whispers, “That would be cheating,” before wrapping an arm around Jim’s waist. </p>
<p>“Seven, six, five-”</p>
<p>And for a moment, Jim forgets the weight on his shoulders and leans into Spock’s. </p>
<p>“Four, three, two-”</p>
<p>And for a moment, the universe lets him.</p>
<p>“One”<br/>But only for a moment. Because as the room explodes into cheers and kisses and one year slips into another, Christopher Pike crashes through the glass door of the Helm and collapses onto the ground. </p>
<p>A red envelope is taped to his back.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Pike looks dead. </p>
<p>It’s a horrible thing to think, and Jim knows it. But it’s the bruised, bandaged, IV’ed, and comatose truth. Jim’s only father figure worth a damn is doing his best impression of a corpse in a hospital bed, and there’s absolutely nothing Jim can do about it. </p>
<p>He stares at the message in a bright pink birthday card soaked through with blood. </p>
<p>
  <em>“If by chance I talk a little wild, forgive me, I had it from my father.”<br/>
What did your father give you, Jimmy?</em>
</p>
<p>Jim has wracked his brain over and over again trying to remember anyone in his life who would do this and keeps coming up short. He’s made a lot of mistakes in his life, but whatever he did to make someone hate him like this, Jim can’t remember. And now that mistake, that gaping black hole in his memory, has nearly killed two of the most important people in his life. </p>
<p>He’s getting tired of the déjà vu. Pike is even on the same floor that Bones was during his hospital stay, and had the same doctors perform the emergency surgery. It’s the same sickening fear that this will be the last time Jim ever gets to talk to, or hug, or tease someone who has always made sure that Jim never goes too far. It’s the same anger, made worse by Jim’s certainty that he’s being played with by someone who knows all the rules and won’t tell Jim. </p>
<p>“It looks worse than it is.”  Jim sits up from his slump at Pike’s bedside and looks at Bones. The doctor’s eyes have smudges of exhaustion under them, and his short brown hair is sticking up and curling in odd directions. Bones didn’t perform Pike’s surgery to save his, well, everything, but he’s been awake with Jim for the past forty eight hours, something Jim is grateful beyond words for. </p>
<p>“Really? Because it looks pretty fucking bad from where I’m sitting.” </p>
<p>Bones sighs. “I won’t lie to you. There’s a good chance he either won’t wake up, or if he does, he’ll have severe brain damage.”<br/>
“But,” he continues. “He’s got a fighting chance at a full recovery.”</p>
<p>Jim scoffs. “That’s just another way of saying we don’t know.”</p>
<p> He squeezes the side of the plastic chair and says quietly, “They tortured him, Bones. Don’t ask me how I know what they did, but they were this close to killing him.” Jim takes in Pike’s pale, deathly stillness, and adds, “Why didn’t they? Both times, they stopped just short.”</p>
<p>Bones shakes his head and puts a big, heavy hand on Jim’s shoulder. “That’s the million dollar question.” They both go quiet for a while, until Bones says, “Jim, you need to tell Spock the whole story. He needs to know.”</p>
<p>Jim stiffens. As childish as it is, he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want Spock to know about that part of him, of his history. They’ve built something good, and he’s terrified that if Spock knows about all of him, it will all come crashing down permanently. But he knows, deep down, that Bones is right. It’s dangerous for Spock not to know at this point. </p>
<p>“I know,” says Jim, feeling older and more tired than he has in a long time. “It’s time.”</p>
<p>When Spock comes back into the room a few minutes later, Jim stands up. “Spock, we need to talk.”</p>
<p>They go to the hospital garden and find a bench. It’s a stupidly nice day, sunny and warm and everything the world should not be when Christopher Pike is almost dead, and if Jim weren’t so caught up in everything else he might have been pissed about it. </p>
<p>“It’s the first nice day in a month,” Jim says. “Figures.”</p>
<p>Spock raises an eyebrow. “You are stalling.”</p>
<p>“Believe me,” says Jim softly. “You would too.” </p>
<p>He exhales and continues in the cold, impersonal voice he uses whenever he has to talk about this. “You already know about my dad and my mom and Frank. You already know that Christopher Pike was my legal guardian for seven years. We need to talk about the four months in between.” </p>
<p>Jim picks an interesting bit of dirt on his shoes to look at and begins to talk.</p>
<p> He tells his shoes about the Tarsus group home in Iowa.</p>
<p> His shoes learn that nine kids were brought down into the basement one by one. </p>
<p>Nine kids fought each other over the bowls of food pushed in through a flap in the door once a day. When the police opened the door four months later, one boy sat alone in the putrid darkness. The kitchen wall learns that Kodos Karidian, the foster parent who pushed ciphers under the door for his favorite, was never found. </p>
<p>Spock doesn’t say anything for a long time afterwards. It’s taking everything Jim has not to throw up or dissociate into another plane of existence, so he doesn’t catch on right away that Spock’s talking to him. </p>
<p>“When I look at you, I do not see the boy trapped in the basement. I see the man who survived an ordeal no child should ever have to, and grew to become someone extraordinary.” His eyes are warm and steady, and the press of Spock’s fingers to Jim’s own grounds him. </p>
<p>“I’m not extraordinary.” Jim curls his fingers so that his hand is entangled with Spock’s. “I’m lucky, and stubborn, and alive.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Spock agrees. “You are. But you are also extraordinary.”</p>
<p>After a moment of contemplation, he goes on. “When we met in June, I was nearly consumed by my grief for my mother. I have no words for how utterly impossible it was to complete the most basic of daily tasks, or how each morning I awoke angry that I had lived through another night when she had not. I was living, but I was not alive.</p>
<p>‘And then I met you. You did not take away my grief, but you made living with it bearable. With you, I learned how to enjoy the sun on my face again, how to see the beauty in my music again, how to go to sleep and not dread the morning. </p>
<p>‘You did this for me, and I do not know what the parameters of extraordinary entail, but I know that you lie firmly within them.”</p>
<p>Jim can’t look at Spock, so Spock doesn’t make him. Instead, he pulls Jim into a tight hug, and Jim allows his world to shrink to the space between his arms. </p>
<p>--<br/>
The start of the spring semester sneaks up on Jim, and although it seems ridiculous to be worrying about his thesis when his friends and family are in so much danger, Jim’s almost grateful to have the distraction. Almost. </p>
<p>But it means that he and Spock hardly ever see each other outside of a kiss goodnight and goodbye in the morning, and it’s starting to wear on Jim. It’s sappy, but damn it, Jim just wants to spend an hour with his partner without talking about their research or classes or the psycho out to get them. </p>
<p>And, to put it bluntly, it’s been a while since they’ve had the time or energy to do anything other than talk. When they first got together, Jim had fully expected to never be able to have sex with Spock because of his boundaries with touch, and he had been perfectly okay with that. But then, to his shock and delight, Spock had come to him and asked if there was a reason Jim was uninterested in sex. And after a discussion about boundaries, it was full steam ahead.</p>
<p>(More or less. Jim was disappointed but understanding when Spock told him that he didn’t enjoy penetration, but so far getting creative has only been fun for them both.)</p>
<p>But the point is, when their schedules and the stars finally align on a Thursday night in late January, Jim sends out a mass text along the lines of  ‘If you contact either of us for anything other than the apocalypse, I will kill you and Spock will help’. </p>
<p>He tries to make reservations, but every place is booked with a waiting list ten years long. Which is just as well, because one of Jim’s undergrad students needs emergency tutoring on Thursday afternoon, and Spock has an extremely urgent and last minute meeting with someone from an acronymed agency. </p>
<p>So Jim stumbles into Spock’s house an hour after he said he would, with coffee breath and a migraine and a crick in his neck that won’t go away. But all that melts away after he showers and heads downstairs. Spock isn’t in the music room, so Jim checks the cozy living area on the other side of the kitchen, and finds his partner seated on the floor with a chess set in front of him. </p>
<p>Jim smiles, and pads across the thick Oriental carpet before plopping down in front of Spock. The candles scattered around the room are lit for once, giving the sparse but cozy area something a little extra. </p>
<p>“Jim, I have a proposal,” Spock says. To anyone else, they might have only heard a flat, dry statement. But to Jim, attuned as he is to the subtleties of Spock’s voice, hears the beginning of something much more interesting. </p>
<p>He picks up a chess piece and runs it through the fingers of one hand, and looks up to see Spock fixated on the movement of Jim’s fingers. Jim looks at Spock and says, a shade deeper than usual, “I’m listening.”</p>
<p>Spock tears his eyes away from the chess piece in Jim’s hand, eventually. “I wish to alter the rules of the game.” Jim gestures for him to go on, a slow smile tugging at his mouth. </p>
<p>He glances up at Jim through a curtain of long black lashes, and says, “Each captured piece constitutes the removal of one item of clothing.”</p>
<p>Jim’s mouth falls open, but it quickly rearranges itself into a sharp grin. “Why, Spock. If you wanted to play strip chess, all you had to do was ask.”</p>
<p>Spock’s only answer is the challenge of an eyebrow. And when he makes the first move, all bets are off. Jim plays like a lunatic, Spock plays like an assassin. </p>
<p>Jim loses a sock. </p>
<p>Spock loses a shoe. </p>
<p>Soon, it feels like the room has shrunk to him, the board, and the barest flashes of Spock’s pale skin. The bastard only has his feet bare compared to Jim’s bare chest, and he’s still driving Jim crazy. </p>
<p>Jim loses his pants. </p>
<p>Spock loses his sweater. </p>
<p>And Jim can feel the want pooling in his belly, and when he catches Spock’s heated gaze dragging over every inch of his body, Jim knows he’s not alone. </p>
<p>Jim loses his other sock. </p>
<p>Spock loses his pants. </p>
<p>And finally, when neither of them remember what the word strategy means, Jim checks Spock’s king. He watches with bated breath as Spock rises fluidly, his lean, muscled body utterly on display. But Spock’s hands don’t go to his hips to push off his last piece of clothing. </p>
<p>Instead, Spock reaches behind his head and pulls out a hair pin. His eyes don’t let Jim look anywhere else as he pulls out another and another, until with a strong shake of his head, Spock’s long black hair comes tumbling down his chest and back. The thick, inky mane reaches to his waist, and Jim just can’t take it anymore. </p>
<p>He stands up and steps across the board, scattering chess pieces in his wake. Jim steps close to Spock, close enough to hear how quickly he’s breathing and to see the flush high on his cheekbones. God, Jim wants to touch him. He wants to touch him possibly more than anything he’s ever wanted in his life. </p>
<p>But he has a promise to keep. So he stands there, closer than close, and asks. “May I?”</p>
<p>Spock looks at him with half-lidded eyes, and Jim feels more than hears his ‘Yes, Jim.” And even though he desperately wants to reach out and pull Spock closer, he waits for Spock to make the first move. And when Spock snakes a hand behind Jim’s neck and draws him in for a kiss that goes from sweet to filthy in five seconds flat, Jim gives as good as he gets. </p>
<p>Somehow, they make it to the couch. Jim tries to pull Spock into his lap, but Spock has other ideas. He pushes Jim down onto his back, and swings a long leg over Jim’s hips to straddle him. </p>
<p>“Now what?” Jim teases. Then, he starts laughing, because all of Spock’s long, sexy hair has fallen in front of his face. </p>
<p>“I fail to see the humor in this situation,” Spock says, sounding more than a little offended. </p>
<p>Jim tries, but he can’t stop giggling. “You-“ he wheezes, “Look like the girl from the Ring.”</p>
<p>Spock makes a strangled noise, and pulls an elastic band out of thin air and ties his hair into a long ponytail. Then, he leans down and whispers, “You are going to regret that comment.”</p>
<p>And for the next thirty minutes, Spock proceeds to make Jim do exactly that. He sits up off his knees so that Jim has absolutely no friction to work with, and uses every single one of Jim’s weaknesses against him. </p>
<p>When he goes and leaves a cluster of marks in the hollow of Jim’s jaw, he stops just short of breaking skin. When he skates his nails across Jim’s chest and ribs, he avoids Jim’s nipples and doesn’t press hard enough to leave any red lines. When he moves to the floor and spreads Jim’s legs, he spends ages exploring Jim’s thighs, but doesn’t so much as breathe on Jim’s dick. </p>
<p>Jim has never begged so much in his life. He’s writhing shamelessly on the couch, trying to get some sort of relief.  “God, okay, you win,” he says. His voice is rough and wrecked and Jim doesn’t care. “I take it back, I take it back, now will you please just fucking touch me.”</p>
<p>He opens his eyes to see Spock studying him from above, lust-blown eyes dancing with humor. Then, he raises an eyebrow and says, “As you wish,” before he sinks to the floor and takes Jim in his mouth like a pro. Jim braces himself against the back of the couch, pleasure sparking through him in waves. He keeps his hands at his sides, unwilling to reach for what he wants until Spock reaches up and puts Jim’s hands in his hair. </p>
<p>“Really?” Jim says breathlessly. Spock glares up at him, and relaxes his jaw so that there are exactly zero good things happening to Jim’s dick. </p>
<p>Jim groans and looks down at his partner fondly. “Why does sex turn you into such a petty bastard?” Spock narrows his eyes and scrapes his teeth lightly over very, <em>very</em> sensitive skin. </p>
<p>Jim yelps. “Ow, fine. Is this what you want?” He tangles his hands in Spock’s hair and tugs, which makes Spock do things with his tongue that should be illegal. When he feels his orgasm building, he looks down at the vision between his legs, and that image pushes him over the edge into blinding pleasure. </p>
<p>When his eyes remember how to work, Jim blinks and sees Spock spitting delicately into a tissue and wiping his mouth. Jim shakes off the sleepy post-blowjob endorphins, and reaches up to Spock. </p>
<p>“Thank you,” Jim murmurs. “Now, what do you need?”</p>
<p>Spock thinks about it, and then manhandles him until Jim has his arms looped around Spock’s chest and his legs loosely bracketing Spock’s own. With his head resting against Jim’s shoulder, Spock says softly, his voice just as hoarse as Jim’s, “I want you to watch.”</p>
<p>So Jim does. He tucks his chin over Spock’s shoulder and devours the sight of his partner’s elegant fingers dragging up and down. He gets to listen to every hitch in Spock’s breath, feel every notch of tension.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter that Jim isn’t the one causing Spock to lean his head back and murmur endlessly in languages that Jim doesn’t even recognize. Being allowed to hold Spock like this, pressed back against Jim’s chest, and being allowed to witness his partner’s pleasure is more than enough. </p>
<p>When shudders start to roll through his body, Spock tucks his face against the side of Jim’s neck and brings a hand up to cup Jim’s jaw, his fingers scrabbling. He makes a frustrated noise, and says a little brokenly, “ ‘not enough. Please, Jim, I-“</p>
<p>Jim presses a kiss to the back of Spock’s free hand, and asks again, “What do you need?” </p>
<p>Spock flips his hand over and traces shaking fingers against Jim’s lips. Jim curls his arms even tighter around Spock and says, “It’s okay, I’ve got you. Go ahead.”  Then, three of Spock’s fingers slip into his mouth, and Jim goes to town. He swirls his tongue down and around each strong finger, gagging a little as they push further back. </p>
<p>It doesn’t take long before Spock’s arching his back between Jim’s chest and arms and coming with a gasp and a sob. Jim forgets how to breathe as Spock takes his spit slick fingers from Jim’s mouth and works himself through the aftershocks. Finally, he slumps back bonelessly. </p>
<p>Jim kisses his temple, and waits for a moment until Spock gets his bearings. Then, he leans in very close to Spock’s ear and says, “Don’t freak out, but I think there’s dog hair in my ass.”</p>
<p>Spock gives him a few choice words, and Jim’s cackle echoes throughout the house.<br/>
--<br/>
The visitor finishes the last envelope, and seals it with a kiss. </p>
<p>Soon, she thinks. Soon.<br/>
--<br/>
The next morning, Jim slips out of bed early. He clips Thor into her leash, and heads for a walk across the park to the Helm. He chats with Sulu, lingers at the counter for the tea he’s surprising Spock with. He takes the long way back across the park. </p>
<p>Later, he’ll wonder if that was why it happened. </p>
<p>When he reaches Spock’s house, the door is ajar. Something curdles in Jim’s stomach, and he drops the tea as he races up the steps and into the house. </p>
<p>It’s trashed. Pottery pieces and crumpled pieces of sheet music litter the downstairs, and Jim crunches over bits of knick knacks as he runs up into the bedroom. It’s empty. Terror gripping his heart, Jim tears through every inch of the house, calling for Spock. </p>
<p>Then, he gets to the music room. Sheet music papers the floor, and Spock’s cello hides its loose strings and broken neck behind the piano. But the thing that turns Jim’s mind to static are the red envelopes infecting the room like a virus. There has to be at least a hundred, and all Jim can think about is the one in the very center of the room with a smear of blood and a cell phone on it. </p>
<p>The phone rings. </p>
<p>Jim answers.  Before he can even breathe, a woman’s voice appears in his ear. </p>
<p>“Hello, Jimmy. It’s good to see you again. I have something you want, you should come and get it. Meet me at 84 San Marisa Boulevard in twenty minutes.” </p>
<p>Jim has a million things to say to her, but hisses, “You can’t have him. Do you hear me, you can’t-“</p>
<p>She cuts him off. “I already do, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Twenty minutes, or he’s dead.” She pauses. “Oh, and Jimmy? Tell anyone about this, and you’ll never find his body.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Are sex scenes always this fun to write?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jim doesn’t hesitate at all. </p>
<p>He should be scared, or strategizing, or something other than this cool, collected calm. But the thing is, Jim has prepared for this mission since meeting Spock in the park way back in June. And that’s what this is, a mission. Jim has a purpose, a target, and the cold fury of someone who will complete that mission or die trying. </p>
<p>When Jim pulls into the abandoned lot, he knows two things instantly. That he’s walking into a trap, and that Spock isn’t here. He chooses to believe that that means Spock is alive for now, and refuses to consider any alternatives. The world will work this way, because Jim cannot let it be otherwise. </p>
<p>He gets out of the car and walks slowly into the dirt lot with his hands raised. “I’m here, come and get me, you bitch.” </p>
<p>It isn’t long before a faint crunch of footsteps gets closer, and closer, until Jim knows exactly what will come next and stands still anyway. The bootsteps get closer still. There’s a faint whoosh and whistle, and then pain explodes behind Jim’s eyes. </p>
<p>His knees buckle under him and the dusty ground rises up to meet him. The blow hurts like a bitch, but the angle was off just enough that Jim doesn’t black out. He closes his eyes while sweaty hands search him for weapons. Zip ties bind his wrists and ankles. They find the knives strapped to his calf and the gun tucked in his waistband. </p>
<p>They don’t check Jim’s mouth, though. Amateurs.  </p>
<p>The thug checks the magazine and sneers, “This thing isn’t even loaded, dipshit.” </p>
<p>After they finish stripping Jim of the decoy weapons, he’s hauled into the back of a van and thrown on the floor with a hood pulled over his face. His assailant starts the van and squeals out of the lot. Jim’s head rattles against the filthy floor, and as soon as he’s sure the driver is more concerned with the radio station than his hostage, Jim starts wiggling his wrists against their restraints. </p>
<p>He doesn’t get very far by the time the van stops moving, but at least the zip tie is that much looser than it was. The driver throws open the van doors and pulls Jim up by his hair. Jim blinks for dramatic effect, and says, “Buddy, this is so not how I imagined our first date would be. Where’s the flowers, the wine, the-“</p>
<p>A punch to mouth shuts Jim up. Blood dribbles into the black hood covering his face, and all Jim can smell is iron. Iron and- gasoline? As the driver drags Jim out of the van and onto what Jim thinks is asphalt, a buzzing whine sounds from overhead. Despite the blood drying on his chin and his probable concussion, Jim grins at the familiar sound of planes flying overhead. </p>
<p>He knows exactly where he is. So he starts talking again, jabbering to the driver about whatever bullshit comes to mind as his back gets scraped raw against the ground.</p>
<p>“This is really unseasonal weather we’re having, have you noticed that? I mean, Monday it’s hot, Tuesday it’s cold, like make up your mind San Francisco. I guess that’s what climate change does, you know? Hot then cold then even more hot and then really fucking cold...” He goes on and on until he gets thrown onto cold concrete. </p>
<p>The driver rips Jim’s hood off and gets right in his face. “Do you ever stop talking?”</p>
<p>Jim thinks about it, then waggles his eyebrows. “I know one way that works every time.”</p>
<p>He gets a boot in the ribs for that, but it doesn’t matter. By taunting the driver, Jim’s making himself look like a harmless idiot. Which is exactly what he wants.</p>
<p>While the burly driver’s preoccupied for a moment, Jim takes the opportunity to get a glimpse at his surroundings. He’s in a small airplane hangar, the kind designed to house Cessna's and other teeny tiny planes. It’s dark, smells like fuel and feet, and it's empty of any actual planes. </p>
<p>There are a million ways out, but Jim doesn’t try to escape. And even if he wanted to, the driver pulls him up to his knees and loops a chain through the zip tie around Jim’s hands before Jim can move. He reaches over Jim’s head and hooks something into the chain. When he’s done, he presses a button on a small yellow box. </p>
<p>Jim’s hands get pulled over his head, and soon he’s suspended a few feet off the ground. The driver steps back, and Jim takes the opportunity to get one last jibe in. “Like what you see, big boy?” </p>
<p>A gut punch gives him his answer. After the driver leaves, Jim moves his wrists back and forth, testing the give of the zip tie against the chain. Then, he kicks off his shoes and socks. Jim wore loose pants on purpose, and the driver zip tied Jim’s legs over his pants, which gives Jim enough room to shimmy the zip tie down and off of his feet. </p>
<p>He’s well on his way to gaining some leverage when a wet, wheezing sound stops him cold. </p>
<p>“Hello,” he calls. There’s no answer, just the wheezing coming from behind him. “Who are you?”</p>
<p>There’s another wheeze, and a faint, familiar, “Jim.” </p>
<p>Jim’s heart drops. “Spock?” He starts trying even harder to get out of the zip tie on his wrist. “Spock, what happened, are you hurt?”</p>
<p>Spock doesn’t answer. </p>
<p>Jim runs through everything Bones has ever taught him about medicine and first aid. The wheeze probably means that Spock has a chest wound, and if he’s strung up like Jim, the pressure on his lungs and heart is slowly killing him. </p>
<p>“I’ve got a plan,” Jim hisses. “I’ll get us out of here, just don’t die on me before then. Understand? You can’t die here.”</p>
<p>“Well, this is touching.” </p>
<p>Jim whips his head around, trying to find the source of the voice. It’s the same voice that was on the phone. Then, a woman melts out of the shadows and strides across the hangar towards him. </p>
<p>She’s tall and thin, with the face that belongs in a PTA meeting. She doesn’t look like someone who has nearly killed three, now four people. But as she gets closer, Jim sees the absolute bug fuck crazy in her big blue eyes. </p>
<p>The kind of crazy that brings with it an eerie calm that tells the world that this person believes with total certainty that they are right and the rest of the world is wrong. </p>
<p>The thing is, Jim still doesn’t recognize her. But there’s something about her voice that nags at him. </p>
<p>“Who the fuck are you, and why are you trying to kill everyone I love?” Jim spits. Might as well start with the big one. </p>
<p>She chuckles. “I’m disappointed, Jimmy. Daddy always talked about how smart you are, but gee, you don’t even know me.”</p>
<p>And there it is. Memories crawl into Jim’s mind, tripping over and into each other. Jim squeezes his eyes shut, but they still come for him. </p>
<p>A voice by the door at the top of the stairs, sitting on the floor and blocking out the thin sliver of light that came into the basement. The voice learned her ABCs by that door, mixing up L and M. The voice read the Velveteen Rabbit by that door, reading louder when the voices in the basement got too loud. </p>
<p>Jim opens his eyes. “Hello, Lenore.”</p>
<p>“bout time, Jimmy.” </p>
<p>“Why are you doing this?” An ugly rage surges through him, and Jim struggles to keep it contained. </p>
<p>Lenore glares at him, and if looks could kill, Jim would be a smear on the wall. “You know why.”</p>
<p>Jim grits his teeth and says, “No, I don’t. But we can have a long heart to heart about it after you let Spock go. He has nothing to do with this, and he’s dying. Let him go, and you can do whatever you want to me.”</p>
<p>She taps her jaw. “Whatever I want. I like the sound of that. But no, your boyfriend stays. I need him.”</p>
<p>“For what,” Jim spits. He’s had enough. “Will you please just get to the fucking point and tell me why you’re doing this?”</p>
<p>Lenore smiles and says, “Fine. You are going to clear my father’s name, on camera. You are going to tell the world that you lied in court, and that he was a good man.” She looks at him almost earnestly, and Jim starts to laugh. </p>
<p>He laughs and laughs until it hurts and tears are running down his cheeks, mixing with the blood. While he’s laughing, he checks for Spock’s wheezing. It’s still there, but growing fainter. </p>
<p>“You’re nuts. Your father locked nine children in a basement and starved us. He killed eight kids, Lenore,” he snarls. “I’ll die before I do anything to help that man.”</p>
<p>“No he didn’t! My Daddy was a good man,” she half-shrieks. “And he’s dead because you told, and now you’re going to make it right.” She wipes her eyes and gets right in Jim’s face. “And that bit about dying? I thought you might say that.”</p>
<p>She moves behind Jim. When she comes back out, she’s dragging a body. Spock’s body. </p>
<p>Lenore dumps him on the ground in front of Jim, and Spock doesn’t move. Jim can’t hear him breathing anymore, and the fear chokes him. Spock is covered in blood, and he’s curled around himself, protecting his side. </p>
<p>Before Jim can say anything, Lenore pulls out a taser and aims it at Spock. </p>
<p>“No, don’t-“</p>
<p>But she does. And Jim is helpless to watch his partner, the love of his life, the person he would die for a thousand times over, thrash on the floor, adding more blood to the puddle around him. </p>
<p>“You can make it stop,” Lenore whispers in Jim’s ear. “Do what I want, and you won’t have to watch him die.” </p>
<p>And Jim has a choice to make. He can either compromise everything he is and defend a man who tortured him, tortured and killed children with nowhere else to go and no one to cry at their funerals, or he can try and save the man who taught him what it is to love, and be loved in return. </p>
<p>You know what he chooses. </p>
<p>“Fine,” Jim says quietly. “I’ll do it. But you have to get him medical attention first, if he dies, you don’t get shit from me.”</p>
<p>“No, Jimmy,” Lenore answers. “If he dies, it’s your fault.”</p>
<p>She sets up the camera on a tripod, and Jim takes a breath. He’s never felt so dirty in his life, and he knows that if he does this, there will be a stain on him somewhere deep inside that will never, ever come off. Jim wonders if Spock will still love him after he does this. But then again, if he’s dead, it won’t matter. </p>
<p>Lenore arranges the camera to only show Jim’s face, and then walks around behind him, out of the camera’s sight. Something presses into his side, and there’s a click. Behind the camera, the driver has a gun pointed on Spock. </p>
<p>Jim takes a breath. Lets it out. Tries to find the words, and fails. The gun presses harder into his side, and the pool of blood under Spock grows larger. </p>
<p>So he tries again.</p>
<p>“I, James Tiberious Kirk-“</p>
<p>There’s a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye but, Jim ignores it. </p>
<p>“-Renounce my statement given-“</p>
<p>A whir, and thump come from just overhead. </p>
<p>“-in the Madison County Court-“</p>
<p>Another click. An exhale. Then a sharp crack sounds from everywhere, and the driver slumps back on his knees. </p>
<p>Lenore doesn’t even flinch. “Keep talking,” she hisses.  </p>
<p>Jim opens his mouth, but then another voice does it for him. </p>
<p>“Lower your weapon.”</p>
<p>“Lower yours, or I’ll shoot him,” Lenore snarls. </p>
<p>The other voice answers with an eerily familiar commanding monotone. “You have your gun aimed at a section of subcutaneous fat. If you fire, he has a seventy four point five percent chance of survival. I have my gun aimed at your skull. If I fire, you have a point zero zero three percent chance of survival. Are you willing to gamble with those odds?”</p>
<p>Lenore hesitates, and then Jim feels her hand twitch against the trigger. A shot rings in Jim’s ears, and he prepares for an agonizing death. But it doesn’t come. </p>
<p>He looks down, and Lenore is on the floor, blood trickling out of a hole in her temple. There’s another woman on the floor as well- slim, with short black hair and brown skin. She’s dressed all in black, and Jim really doesn’t want to know what’s in the pockets of her cargo pants. </p>
<p>Spock coughs, and Jim starts. “Look, whoever you are, thank you for saving us but he needs immediate medical assistance.” </p>
<p>The woman doesn’t answer, but Jim watches in astonishment as Spock sits up, inspects his torso, and stands up. </p>
<p>“Hello, Michael,” he says without a hint of the wet, wheeze that will haunt Jim’s nightmares for years to come. “Your response time was within standard operation parameters.”</p>
<p>Michael stands from where she’s been arranging Lenore’s gun in her limp hand, and folds her hands behind her back. “Hello, Spock. Your acting skills are still sub-par.”</p>
<p>While Spock has the weirdest conversation Jim’s ever heard, Jim gets busy escaping. The zip tie is already loose from his efforts in the van, and the chain looped through it means that Jim only has to dislocate his thumb a little to slip out and down to the floor. </p>
<p>Rubbing his wrists, Jim walks over to the pair. “Hi, hello, I’m Jim, and I have no idea what the fuck is going on.” He points to Spock, then Michael. “Why aren’t you almost dead, and why are you a ninja who talks like him? And how, exactly, did you know we were here?”</p>
<p>The two look at each other, and then Jim gets hit with the combined force of two extremely judgmental eyebrows.</p>
<p>Spock goes first. “I am not dead, because my injuries are superficial. I was able to control the location and depth of the stab wound through the manipulation of my body. I allowed Lenore to believe my wound was far more severe than it truly was, so that she would not think me a threat.”</p>
<p>“I have a very specific skill set, and Spock is my brother. He also owes me a favor,” Michael says flatly. “That is all I will say on the matter.” </p>
<p>Jim throws up his hands. “Okay, fine, I give up. But in case anyone cares, I had my own escape plan going on, and the cops will be here in about five minutes.”</p>
<p>Spock looks way more curious than someone with a stab wound should, and he asks, “What was your plan?”</p>
<p>“I have a GPS tracker in my mouth,” Jim says. He pops it off his tooth with a tug, and spits it out with sharp grin. “Lenore had no way of knowing if I would contact someone or not, so I popped this sucker out of an old piece of equipment and sent Thor over to my apartment with a message for Bones.” </p>
<p>Michael gives Spock a side eye. “Thor?”</p>
<p>Spock sighs. “His dog.”</p>
<p>After a glance at her watch, Michael holsters her gun. “My presence is required elsewhere. Spock, father wishes you to cease your work with the Pentagon immediately.”</p>
<p>“I will not. If Father hired competent specialists, I would be unable to defeat their security protocols.”</p>
<p>Suddenly, Jim’s a lot more suspicious of Spock’s work with the acronymed agencies. But that’s a discussion for another time. Michael disappears, and Jim walks up to Spock. Spock holds up two fingers, and Jim returns the kiss gratefully. </p>
<p>“I thought you were dying,” Jim says softly. “You don’t know what I would have done if she had killed you.”</p>
<p>“She is dead, Jim,” says Spock. “And we are alive, as are our friends. She cannot hurt anyone else.”</p>
<p>Relief surges through Jim, and he closes his eyes. It’s over, and Spock is alive, and that is all that matters. </p>
<p>Jim opens his eyes, draws strength from the steadiness in Spock’s eyes. And he asks, one last time, “May I?”</p>
<p>And Spock nods. Jim pulls him into a hug, mindful of his stab wound, and reminds himself that the world did not end today. It might tomorrow, or the day after that, but in this moment, everything is right. </p>
<p>-Fin</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>As always, I don't own these characters and make no money from this work. Thank you for sticking with me to the end, and I hope you had as much fun reading this as I did writing it.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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